Harnessing the Caribbean's water to generate power

BNamericas: Why the Caribbean?

Feakins: First of all there's a need and secondly from a technical standpoint there are many Caribbean nations that in fact have exceedingly good asymmetry: access to the deep cold water we need and very warm surface waters.

And for the most part, a lot of these island nations are very short of drinkable water.

They also need economic development opportunities in the form of agriculture products and aquaculture operations, and all of these opportunities are available through the use of our technology.

The Caribbean is convenient for us because it's very close to the United States. And now Cuba's opened up, that's another enormous opportunity for us.

BNamericas: What is the status of OTEC's plans for the Caribbean?

Feakins: The Bahamas project is moving forward. That's obviously very important for us because it's our first project.

The feasibility study for the United States Virgin Islands that we've been working on for the best part of the year with our French partner DCMS, that's coming to a point where we would be ready to present that fairly soon, in the next couple of months or so.

The MOUs with the Bahamas Electricity Corporation and some of the other islands that we've been working with, they're all moving forward.

In the Cayman Islands, we have signed a general terms agreement with the developer for seawater air conditioning plants.

And for this year, I would say that probably two of these MOUs will proceed to a contract of some description, either a power purchase agreement or an energy service agreement.

BNamericas: What is the company's business model for carrying out these projects?

Feakins: While our business model is to build, own and operate, we will also look at turnkey operations if that's what somebody wants us to do.

BNamericas: Are there many doubts or questions from potential clients regarding these technologies?

Feakins: For seawater air conditioning there are very few questions. Toronto already uses water from Lake Ontario to air condition its downtown and Stockholm uses the technology to air condition its airport.

With ocean thermal electricity, that's a different kettle of fish, because there are no commercial systems in operation today. But our company engineers have been involved in research and development for 35 years.

We don't have a challenge signing a customer for an OTEC plant. The challenge is to convince a bank or a finance institution to fund the construction costs. Banks want to make sure that once an OTEC plant is built it's going to work.

So to mitigate that, what we do when we go to an engineering procurement contractor is we ask that contractor to guarantee the performance of the plant once it's built, which means the contractor has to be convinced that he can build the plant for us and that he can make it work according to our specifications.

BNamericas: How does OTEC compare with other renewables?

Feakins: I can't give you specifics because every OTEC plant is different to the extent that how many components are we going to be using, in other words how many heat exchangers, what's the length of the pipe, how far do we have to go down to get our deepwater, is it going to be a floating or a land based plant, so there are many different variables.

But when you add in all the ancillary technologies such as the water and opportunities for economic development, all of which have been proven on the big island of Hawaii, there are a number of spinoff technologies, which is our vision.

As long as the sun heats the ocean, we produce base load electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and when you're looking at costs, you have to look at how you're paying back your capital costs.

If solar only works 10% of the time, you're only paying down your capital costs 10% of the time. With OTEC we're paying down our capital costs 100% of time and that's why it's economically attractive to our markets.

BNamericas: I understand common ground and CSR is a pillar of OTEC's vision.

Feakins: I think the fact that our technology offers so much to different communities over and above the supply of electricity is a good way to include our communities in everything that we do.

For example, I talked earlier on about the economic opportunities that are presented, that's something which we're very keen on. In fact, in all of our markets we always talk to governments about setting up training programs to teach people how to use aquaculture as a means to economic development, to use our drinkable water for irrigation projects, so that these island nations become more self sufficient.

The other thing that we're really careful about and we involve the community in is the environmental impact. OTEC and seawater air conditioning are both environmentally benign but you really want to start including your communities that you're working in so that they feel comfortable that they can work alongside us as we look upon introducing best practices to construction.