Towards an optimum design of wave energy converter arrays through an integrated approach of life cycle performance and operational capacity

Abstract

Over the last decades, several efforts have been made to develop an alternative and sustainable energy source from wind waves. To achieve the financial sustainability of this technology, most of the research has focused on analyzing facilities composed by several wave energy converters (WECs) arrays instead of isolated ones. Although the interaction between devices and its implications on the performance of the facilities have been studied beforehand, these previous works only considered certain combinations of sea states, limiting the applicability of the results. This work applies a new methodology based on statistical methods to assess the performance of different WEC array distributions during their entire life-cycle in an efficient way, using downscaling techniques and advanced numerical modeling for the propagation of the wave climate. The results obtained during the hindcasted life-cycle are used to analyze the maintenance and operation capabilities of the different alternatives of arrays defined for the WEC facility. The interactions between devices and their efficiency considering the associated impact are also quantified. The whole process was applied to a hypothetical array location in the Gulf of Cádiz (southwestern Spain), where three different array distributions were defined. Results show that the distance between WECs is a key parameter that controls the potential energy production, the efficiency * Corresponding author alopez50@us.es Preprint submitted to Applied Energy June 7, 2017 VERSIÓN PREPRINT -Primera versiónof the facility and the interaction between several devices.

A method to estimate the longshore sediment transport at ebb‐tidal deltas based on their volumetric growth: Application to the Guadiana (Spain–Portugal border)

“…To obtain the above LST values, a downscaling technique satisfactorily applied in other coastal areas was implemented (for details, see Bergillos et al ., ; López‐Ruiz et al ., , ). A database of 500 representative deep‐water wave conditions was defined using the hindcast data from SIMAR point 5026021 (see Figure ).…”

Optimal remediation design and simulation of groundwater flow coupled to contaminant transport using genetic algorithm and radial point collocation method (RPCM)

“…Polynomial basis functions and radial basis functions (RBF) have often been used to construct shape functions to approximate the unknown field parameters in the point collocation method. RBFs can be applied to support the decisionmaking process of environmental management strategies such as the investigation of different nourishment scenarios of coastline (Bergillos et al, 2018), optimal design of wave energy converters at coastal areas (Lpez-Ruiz et al, 2018) and also groundwater…”

Wave–structure interaction in hybrid wave farms

“…Numerical results of heave motion, surge excitation force and surface elevations of wave field agreed well with experimental ones. The far-field effects of wave farms are of interest too, not least in connection with the potential environmental impacts, and have been studied by means of numerical wave models such as SWAN and MIKE 21 (Venugopal and Smith, 2007;Carballo and Iglesias, 2013;Abanades et al, 2014;Iglesias and Carballo, 2014;Iglesias, 2015a, 2015b;Astariz et al, 2015;Abanades et al, 2015;López-Ruiz et al, 2018).…”