Thank you all for participating in the conference!

Dear all, Thank you so much for participating in the OTEC Africa Conference 2013! As I said in the welcome address – without you, there wouldn’t have been an event at all.

The many speeches represented the many facets of OTEC, sustainability, and developing countries. To me, it’s more clear than ever that the link between these three entities is, or can be, very strong. OTEC is without a doubt a great technology in itself, but it also has merits for creating a sustainable future for developing countries in Africa and Asia.

It was a bit of a shame that we had to skip the closing discussions on how to move further; we weren't previously aware that many of the attendees would have to leave in advance, and so we felt it necessary at the time to close the event earlier than originally planned. Here are two suggestions:

1. A dedicated OTEC conference should be held in Europe (to complement the OTEC gatherings in East Asia/Hawaii) once a year or once every two years, to keep the momentum going, and as Lars Golmen pointed out, it is also important that we have an OTEC presence at more of the ocean- or energy-related conferences.
2. While there is a big interest from the Scandinavian authorities and companies, someone should put together applications for funding for different international research projects.

Apart from getting to know one another, I think we all learnt a lot from the conference. A few things I would like to share:

1. While it’s true that OTEC is more economically feasible the larger the plants are, under the right circumstances they don’t have to be bigger than say 2-5 MW to be commercially sound.
2. Fresh water is often more expensive than electricity. Consequently, fresh water production from OTEC shouldn’t be overlooked at this point.
3. Judging from the number of photos taken on Linus Hammar’s slides on OTEC sites outside East Africa, there is indeed a big interest in combining OTEC as clean energy and aid. This combination was also the reason why, among others, the Swedish government, the EU-OEA, and the Kenyan ambassador in Sweden chose to speak.
4. One thing that maybe was news to many of you, is that research is ongoing on heat exchangers made with a mixture of metal and graphene. Graphene is super strong, cheap, and non-corrosive, and would possibly make the OTEC machinery last more or less forever. And there we have it – clean energy and fresh water production as a “true” perpetuum mobile, using energy from the sun and super-clean water from million-year-old glaciers, stored by the oceans.
5. I would also like to stress that we proved that it is possible to run a conference on OTEC; the technology is mature enough to not only result in sub-parts of another conferences. As Fréderic Chino of DCNS said: “OTEC is now!”.

To sum up, the conference showed a great future for OTEC, and at the same time, it was great meeting everyone. The weather was good, the excursion to the Textile Fashion Center was interesting, and we had some really good food.

We will shortly put together our conference proceedings with some papers and other material. Most of ther presentations from the conference can be found here. Also, please enjoy some of the media coverage of the conference: the Swedish television’s feature or the radio’s feature (also take a look at the nice OTEC model!).

From the bottom of the hearts of me and Lars Golmen, thank you for making this a truly unforgettable event!

Petter Dessne

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Registration

The spirit of the conference will be friendly, and so is the price. The reason is that we want as many people as possible to attend. We ask of you to please register and pay the registration fee as soon as possible in order to facilitate planning. You may change all the registration data later on (presentation title, name of attendee(s), etc).

The registration price is set at only 170€ plus VAT, and includes:


Note that we don't offer sponsored speeches or the like; instead, we want organizations to present their product lines and services, so sponsored speeches does not make sense. Posters, roll-ups etc are welcome as well, and will be put on display in the entrance hall or close to the fika tables.

Register for the conference using the form below. Then please pay the registration fee via PayPal, bank transfer, or "Bankgiro" (Sweden only). Payment details and PayPal link can be found below the registration form.

PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO THE LOW REGISTRTAION FEE, WE CANNOT OFFER ANY DISCOUNTS FOR ANYONE ATTENDING THIS CONFERENCE. INVITATION LETTERS ARE SENT UPON REQUEST, WHEN PAYMENT HAS ARRIVED.