Techno-Economic Study of Marine Hydrokinetic Turbines for Electricity Production over the US Gulf stream

Abstract

The electricity production transition leads to the development of low-carbon content renewable energy resources. Due to those challenges, new technologies, such as marine hydrokinetic (MHK) turbines, are dragging more attention concerning their technical and economic feasibility. MHK turbines are essentially like wind turbines, but made for recovering energy related to a flow of water. They can be used for recovering energy from river, ocean, or tidal current. Contrary to wind, such energy resources are much predictable and power density is higher. Furthermore, MHK turbines have the capability to run during natural disaster events, improving the resiliency of the grid. Consequently, this study aims at evaluating the techno-economic feasibility for the deployment of MHK for electricity production over the US gulf stream. The results of this study clearly indicate it is very unlikely this resource around North Carolina coast will be economically attractive, even considering state or government subsidy. On the other hand, the coast of Florida likely offers a great economic potential once the MHK technology reaches its maturity.