 Research related to making open-cycle OTEC a reality began earnestly in 1979 at the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) with funding from the US Department of Energy.Evaporators and suitably configured direct-contact condensers were developed and patented by SERI (see).An original design for a power-producing experiment, then called the 165-kW experiment was described by Kreith and Bharathan (, and) as the Max Jakob Memorial Award Lecture.