Life cycle assessment of a point-absorber wave energy array

Pennock, Shona; Cantarero, Maria Vanegas; Thomaz, Tianna Bloise; Jeffrey, Henry; Dickson, Matthew J.

doi:10.1016/j.renene.2022.04.010

Cited by 13 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…[40] estimated the kinetic energy generation rates onshore and offshore from the global kinetic energy dissipated in the atmospheric boundary layer. Assuming that this power is distributed over each cell proportionally to the mean wind speed squared, the resultant potential for available energy over suitable offshore areas (exclusive economic zone up to 50 m deep) is 8.35 TW (73,146 TWh/yr).…”

Section: Offshore Windmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Examining the Potential of Marine Renewable Energy: A Net Energy Perspective

et al. 2023

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It is often claimed that marine renewable energy alone could meet the electricity demand of current and future human societies. However, such claims are based on highly uncertain estimations of the global potentials of marine renewable energy sources (including tidal, ocean currents, wave, offshore wind and salinity and thermal gradients), and do not take into account the embedded energy of current technologies. To better understand the effective potential of marine energy, we conducted a literature review of its gross, technical, economic and sustainable potentials, as well as the energy return on investment (EROI), and estimated the net energy potential. We found that all marine technologies could provide a maximum energy surplus of 57,000 TWh/yr. This figure goes down to ∼5000TWh/yr when excluding offshore wind. The previous figures do not include the contribution from ocean currents, for which no reliable estimates of global potentials and EROIs could be obtained. Due to its high upfront costs and environmental impacts and low social acceptance, no additional tidal range capacity expansion is envisioned. Similarly, the combination of a low sustainable potential and the low EROI makes the large-scale exploitation of salinity gradients unlikely with current technologies. Including all technologies, the average EROI of marine energy is ∼20, but excluding offshore wind reduces the average EROI to ∼8. While we did consider sustainability constraints for some marine energy sources, our estimation of marine net energy potential primarily relied on technical factors and did not account for economic and legal constraints. Therefore, the results presented here should be interpreted as an upper bound for the actual net energy contribution of marine energy sources to the global energy mix.

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Section: Offshore Windmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In their recent work, ref. [146] carried out a cradle-to-grave LCA on the 350 kW Cor-Power Ocean AB point absorber WEC, as part of a 10 MW array (of 28 units) placed in Aguçadora, Portugal, and under three O&M scenarios. They report mean CED ranges of 0.38 MJ/KWh-0.60 MJ/KWh.…”

Section: Tidalmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining the Potential of Marine Renewable Energy: A Net Energy Perspective

et al. 2023

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“…Researchers have studied wave energy conversion technology from different aspects, such as the research on the characteristics of different power take-off (PTO) devices, 10,11 the geometric optimization of the energy harvesting buoy, 12 the effect of seasonal waves on the energy converters 13 and the environmental impact of the energy harvester during the life cycle. 14 The wave energy harvesting mechanism usually adopts the principle of mechanical energy harvesting. 15 According to different principles, the wave energy harvesting mechanism includes triboelectric, 16,17 piezoelectric, 18 and electromagnetic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%