Wave climate analysis for the design of wave energy harvesters in the Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe objective of this paper is to provide a synthetic tool for determining expeditiously the wave climate conditions in several areas of the Mediterranean Sea. In the open literature, several authors have already conducted this specific analysis also for the area under examination in this paper. However, the need of discussing aspects strictly related to the design of wave energy harvesters is still relevant. Therefore, considering the variety of devices and the amount of information needed for conducting both an energywise optimization and a structural reliability assessment, a holistic view on the topic is provided. Specifically, the paper elucidates the theoretical aspects involved in the estimation of wave energy statistics and in the calculation of relevant return values. Next, it provides synthetic data representing the mean wave power and the return value of extreme events in several coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea. In this regard, the paper complements information available in the open literature by discussing the influence of the directional pattern of the sea states in the determination of sea state statistics as well as in the design of a wave energy harvester.

Wave Energy Assessment along Sicilian Coastline, Based on DEIM Point Absorber

“…The WEC technology is believed to be at a crucial stage of its development, and research is focused on finding out feasible techno-economic solutions [15]. Such conditions pose serious engineering challenges to the design and deployment of WECs [16], increasing costs of development, production, installation, maintenance, and insurance.…”

Estimation of Downtime and of Missed Energy Associated with a Wave Energy Converter by the Equivalent Power Storm Model

“…Then, the outcome is divided by the number of storms recorded by the buoy. Figure 8 shows the average downtime calculated from the data (circles) and from Equation (8). It is seen that the EPS model is able to cover a wide range of values based on the values assigned to λ.…”

“…The adequacy of this approximation was assessed by Arena et al [8]. They showed that introducing a JONSWAP-like approximation on the frequency spectrum allows obtaining reliable results for the calculation of the wave power even in case of bimodal seas.…”

“…The efforts of several research groups were oriented toward the determination of the most attractive sites and of the most reliable technologies for wave energy exploitation. The former analyses were conducted in several areas, such as the Mediterranean Sea [3][4][5][6][7][8][9], the Black Sea [10,11], the USA [12][13][14] and in various Asian regions [15][16][17]. The latter analyses involved the conception of a variety of devices and theoretical and experimental tests on both small-scale and full-scale devices [18][19][20].…”

Wave Energy Exploitation System Integrated in the Coastal Structure of a Mediterranean Port

“…Such a form of energy is not uniformly distributed throughout the world [3][4][5][6] and being generally weak in enclosed seas, is therefore scarcely used for energy exploitation. In particular, the wave energy availability in the Mediterranean Sea, in terms of mean annual wave power, gives values in a range of 2-12 kW/m [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. The areas of the highest energy are located on the western coast of the island of Sardinia, near Alghero (Italy) [14,15], where the mean power is about 12 kW/m.…”