Today marks the 40th anniversary of OTEC-1 a larger-scale floating test-bed that sought to scale up successes on Mini-OTEC. Here are two articles looking back:
The second article is a good look at the project and how politics scuttled some of the advances made early on.
https://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0408/040866.html
Some of the commentary has proved to be prophetic, but luckily, enthusiasm and support by the international community has not disappeared. OTEC technology is ready.