Ocean energy technologies: The state of the art: Final report

A state-of-the-art study of ocean energy technologies has been conducted to evaluate their potential use for the generation of electrical power. The more developed technologies are tidal energy, ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), and wave energy. In addition there has been a demonstration of a small ocean current turbine, and proposals have been made for salinity gradient devices and ocean wind turbines. Energy costs were estimated for representative base case systems for tidal, OTEC, and wave energy projects. The tidal energy scheme was predicted to have the lowest energy costs.