A decision-making process for wave energy converter and location pairing

Abstract

Global awareness concerning clean energy is increasing worldwide. Wave energy converters harvest energy from waves and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This research covers major aspects of the wave energy field including converters and installation-locations, and proposes a Decision-Making Process to identify optimum converter-location pairs for wave energy harvesting. This Process is based on the wave energy converter Selection-Guideline arising from essential features, and the synthesis of previous works so far focused on pinched-point locations. This Process yields a single map, denoting hotspot-areas for energy harvesting, and thereby wave-farm installations, based on multiple input information from the converters (including performance and installation depth), wave climate, resource availability and sustainability, area accessibility, restricted areas, power grid locations, population density, and energy demand, alongside local geographic features including touristic areas. Different spatial-resolution models along the Southeast Australian shelves, and thirty converters showed a high spatial-variation of the pairs nearshore. Devices with high maximum rated power are often, but not necessarily, the best for a given zone. Moreover, this Process is completed by the Energy Demand-Response Index that enables the division and ranking of the area into zones regarding the pairs’ energy response to the energy demand at a reference-point such as a grid station. This research also shows that wave direction can significantly impact energy-production estimations. This Process can be applied to other zones worldwide and has the flexibility to include features that may not have been covered here.