Energy shortage is being exacerbated due to the increase of energy consumption and depletion of fossil fuels. In order to release the energy crisis, new types of energy resources such as small hydropower, solar power, wind power and biomass have been already developed or actively researched. Recently, osmotic power, which harvests energy from salinity gradient between seawater and fresh water, is considered as a feasible candidate. Among the osmotic power processes, pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) is widely gaining attention because of no emission of carbon dioxide and less sensitivity to the external environmental conditions. However, PRO process is facing difficulties such as the lack of specialized PRO membrane and optimization technologies. Therefore, PRO was reviewed in this paper in terms of theoretical background, membrane development, process development and fouling mechanism to provide insights and suggest the future direction of PRO research.