This is the future according to London-based architecture and engineering group Energy Island, which has taken on the mantle of 19th-century renewable-energy pioneer Jacques Arsène d’Arsonval in the hopes of yoking together ocean thermal-energy conversion (Otec) technology with wind turbines, solar-power towers and wave-energy devices to create multi-megawatt (MW) offshore-generation and desalination plants.
Energy Island — a consortium involving father-and-son architect team Dominic and Alex Michaelis, Vega Consulting, the University of Southampton, Halcrow Group, Noble Denton and Parsons Brinkerhoff — has designed a 50MW ‘float-alone’ concept that combines electricity created using Otec — a technique that uses ‘flash evaporated’ seawater to drive turbine generators — with arrays of off-the-shelf renewable-energy technology.
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