An assessment of the performance and potential of OTEC innovation clusters worldwide

An assessment of the performance and potential of OTEC innovation clusters worldwide

Salz, Kevin (TU Delft Technology, Policy and Management)

Quist, J.N. (mentor)
Ortt, J.R. (graduation committee)
Blok, K. (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Management of Technology (MoT)

2018-05-03

Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology development is currently in the gap between academia and commercialization. To bridge this gap, all stakeholders that influence the development must perform optimally. This thesis presents the performance of OTEC developing stakeholder groups (‘clusters’) in Japan, the Netherlands, France, USA and Malaysia and recommendations for improvement. Interviews with the main OTEC developing organizations gave input for a technological innovation system analysis which is used to determine the performance of each cluster. Four structural elements are used to define the current state of OTEC in each innovation system and seven functional elements are used to systematically study activities and events that influence the technology development and commercialization. A cross-case analysis is used to find industry-wide trends.

The cluster around Naval Energies and Akuo Energy in France and the cluster of OTE Corporation and Makai Ocean Engineering both perform well on most of the investigated elements. The performance of the Dutch cluster suffers somewhat from the small scale of its main OTEC developing actor, Bluerise. The Japanese cluster performs very well on research related aspects although limited commercialization efforts can negatively influence further technology diffusion. Malaysia lacks essential actors for technology development and should therefore not be defined as an OTEC cluster.

Two influences external from the industry were found to affect OTEC development negatively. Firstly, current support mechanisms for emerging (renewable energy) technologies are not suitable for technologies that require high upfront investments due to focus on production subsidies instead of upfront grants or guarantees. Secondly, OTEC is not included in renewable energy development plans from governments, which negatively influences the confidence in the technology of industry and investors and creates uncertainty in the market.

OTEC
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion
technological innovation systems
functions of innovation systems
Innovation
Policy

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:863035f9-ed11-4737-aa76-d854641da6e0

Student theses

master thesis

© 2018 Kevin Salz