a b s t r a c tIn this work, we present a methodology for the assessment of the economic value of ocean wave energy schemes. Such an assessment is a necessary tool for supporting investment decisions in the development of wave farms and in the development of wave energy converter (WEC) technology. To overcome the lack of operational experience, the methodology presented includes detailed operational simulations which relate the operational costs and the availability of the plant for power production to the characteristics of the device, the location, and the maintenance strategy chosen. The methodology consists of firstly, a productivity and costs assessment which embodies the operational simulations and secondly, a financial calculator which employs discounted cash-flow techniques to produce selected economic indicators. A case study, consisting of one hundred WECs units deployed off the West Coast of Ireland, is presented to exemplify the use of the methodology. The paper also explores how the key inputs to the assessment affect the economic performance of the case study project via a sensitivity analysis.
a b s t r a c tThis paper presents a study of several factors that affect the long-term performance of Wave energy Converters (WECs) based on the methodology presented in de Andres et al. (2013). This methodology consists of a sea state selection technique (MaxDiss), then this selected sea states are introduced into a numerical model in order to calculate the power performance. Finally this data are interpolated with a non linear technique (Radial Basis functions) in order to obtain the long term performance of a WEC on a long met-ocean data series with low computational requirements. In this paper, three types of converter, a one body heaving converter (follower), a two-body resonant converter as well as a deep water flap are investigated. Also four different locations with different met-ocean conditions in terms of the scatter plots and the sea conditions (swell-wind sea) distribution were selected (North of Spain, West of Denmark, Chile and West of Ireland). The methodology worked perfectly for all the selected alternatives, although it was demonstrated to work better for non-resonant converters that are not band limited in their frequency response. Also, the classical method of power production assessment based on the power matrix was reviewed, analysing the analytical spectrum assumption. The influence of more than one peak spectrum on the power production was found to be large on a sea state by sea state basis (±200%) but also on the Annual Energy Production (±40%).
In this article, we investigate the energy absorption performance of a fixed-bottom pressure-differential wave energy converter. Two versions of the technology are considered: one has the moving surfaces on the bottom of the air chambers whereas the other has the moving surfaces on the top. We developed numerical models in the frequency domain, thereby enabling the power absorption of the two versions of the device to be assessed. It is observed that the moving surfaces on the top allow for easier tuning of the natural period of the system. Taking into account stroke limitations, the design is optimized. Results indicate that the pressure-differential wave energy converter is a highly efficient technology both with respect to energy absorption and selected economic performance indicators.
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