Application of a revised integration of methods for wave energy converter and farm location pair mapping

Abstract

Wave energy is a promising actor for the renewable energy-mix that needs to be increasingly prominent worldwide. However, wave energy often remains too neglected in energy-mix studies. To avoid pre-selecting locations with potential underestimation of Wave Energy Converter performances, indexes and methods have been developed to pair wave energy converter(s) and locations, but (a) resource potential maps have not been compared to Wave Energy Converter performance maps; (b) often farm potentials are obtained based on individual Wave Energy Converter selection; and (c) there is a lack of assessment in the complementarity and relevancy of these indexes. This work aims to address these gaps by (i) investigating wave and converter pairing indexes to select the most relevant, complementary, and representative ones; (ii) merging and improving main pieces of these methods into a novel framework based on the selected indexes and related parameters; and (iii) mapping the most appropriate wave farm for each location according to this framework and compare with resource potential maps. This study is the first to integrate electricity demand and production from wave energy combined with other renewables for an energy-independent archipelago. Results lead to conclude that the annual energy production, energy demand-response index, and multi-criteria approach are the most compliant indexes for the framework developed in this research. Additionally, the wave resource was proven necessary but insufficient to select potential locations because the selected indexes provided a more restrictive converter-location pair potential map following this wave farm framework. The individual-converter-selection using these selected indexes showed farm energy production about twice below the one of selecting the farms directly, which reaches up to 136 GWh/year. The improved framework developed in this research also demonstrated the efficiency of a revised generator-limitation optimisation that increases the capacity factor by up to an improved average of 50% with limited reductions in annual energy production. The high technology readiness level converters highlighted the possibility for the Canary archipelago to become electrically independent (some islands could lose their thermal power stations). This sustainable solution would require an alternation of one and two Wave Dragon farms, and a mix of Wave Dragon, Undigen, Weptos, and Wavepiston farms alongshore.