Singapore start-up devoted to ocean renewable energy planning and development OceanPixel has together with Seed4Com produced an eBook about alternative energy solutions for tackling energy issues in Southeast Asia, putting marine renewables to the forefront.
The book goes into details regarding the current energy situations in Southeast Asia , providing insights about the background of the countries in the region, their existing projects and policies, as well as how they can tap onto this vast supply of renewable energy from their very shores.
One such resource profiled in ebook is marine renewable energy (MRE), and it is within the context of a blue economy that MRE is to be understood as a solution to Southeast Asia energy problem, the book states.
Tidal in-stream devices have been identified as the most developed and widely available ocean renewable energy technology in the region, followed by vast potential of wave energy evidenced by the abundance of surfing havens in the region.
While there is great wave energy potential in the region, the development of this technology is not yet as advanced as that for tidal energy, ebook notes.
The potential of ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is ‘vast’ in Southeast Asia, according to eBook.
While the technology for this is not at the level of tidal and wave energy, the studies are currently underway to develop the resource.
The ocean’s salinity can also be tapped for energy as there are many sites for this in Southeast Asia, especially at the mouths of the region’s numerous rivers, where saltwater and freshwater mix – a natural occurrence which is then exploited for energy extraction known as the salinity gradient .
However, the region’s readiness to develop and adopt this technology at current time is low, eBook states.
(Video by OceanPixel and Seed4Com)
The total power potential of total ocean energy renewable sources in Southeast Asia in SEA is 1TW – the largest among all renewable energy sources in the region. For perspective, the total energy consumption of the USA in 2008 was 3.3TW, suggesting that the ocean renewable energy potential in the Southeast Asia could power one-third of the entire USA for a whole year, according to the report.