Wave Energy Resource along the Southeast Coast of Australia

Abstract

The Australian Government has set a 20% target for renewable energy by 2020 as part of a long-term commitment to decrease Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by 60% on 2000 levels by 2050. In order to accomplish such goal, Australia will need to generate an additional 45 MWh of renewable energy yearly by 2020 where wave energy may play a significant role. Coastal waters of Australia’s southeast margin have been recognised to be suitable for exploiting wave energy resources and potentially capable of significantly contributing to Australia’s annual electricity generation. Nevertheless, until now, no thorough research has yet been conducted to adequately characterize such an unexploit-ed resource along shallow coastal waters. This dissertation presents a detailed assessment of the wave energy resource potential for Australia’s southeast coastal waters, focusing on promising nearshore regions where full-scale wave energy converter farms could potentially be deployed. The study meth-odology employed the wave energy transformation model SWAN to predict wave con-ditions along Australia’s southeastern coast from deep to shallow water depths at hourly resolution for a period of 30 years between 1979 and 2010. The model was driven with high-resolution non-stationary winds and full directional spectra boundary conditions to account for the multimodal sea states, which often subsist along Australia’s southeast coast. SWAN was calibrated and validated against measurements from several wave rider buoy locations for a wide range of sea states.