Harnessing Ocean Energy from Coastal and Offshore Pakistan

There is potential for harnessing renewable energy from coastal waves and tides, from the coastal and offshore areas of Pakistan. The Sindh coast is a complex creek network located in the 170 km of the Indus deltaic area. The flood and ebb of tides in and out of these creeks have a high velocity of 0.2–0.5 m/s. NIO Pakistan has conducted preliminary feasibility surveys for energy extraction from the Indus deltaic creek system. The 17 major creeks have the capacity to produce estimated energy of approximately 1100 MW. The seawater ingresses inland at some places up to 80 km due to the tidal fluctuation, which is favorable for energy extraction from tidal currents in coastal Sindh. In total, 71% of our Planet Earth is covered by the oceans. The oceans are massive collectors of solar radiation received from the sun. The oceans store the potential energy that is received in the form of incident radiation from the sun that generates thermal energy. A 10 °C temperature difference can be harnessed between the surface and bottom water, using a working fluid. The thermal difference absorbed by the oceans can be converted into electricity through ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). The ocean tidal and wave energy has advantages over energy produced using different fossil fuels; there are also several benefits of using renewable sources of ocean energy. Viability of ocean energy in Pakistan is discussed in this paper.

Ocean Energy in the Caribbean: Technology Review, Potential Resource and Project Locational Guidance

This publication assesses the potential for deployment of the leading Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) technologies including Fixed Offshore Wind, Floating Offshore Wind, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion across nine Countries of Interest (COI) in the Caribbean region. This is achieved by conducting a technology review, analysing resource levels in each of the COIs, and presenting the outputs of Locational Guidance work identifying preferred areas for potential future project development. This work concludes that MRE can offer a secure supply of indigenous clean energy, that resources are sufficiently abundant to meet the current and future energy demand of each of the COIs many times over, and that the leading MRE technologies are sufficiently advanced to be worthy of immediate prioritisation. This Technical Note draws on and presents outcomes from work undertaken in 2019 as part of a Technical Cooperation Agreement between the IDB and CDB under the Support for Sustainable and Resilient Projects in the Caribbean programme.