Wave energy potential in the Eastern Mediterranean Levantine Basin. An integrated 10-year study

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe main characteristics of wave energy potential over Eastern Mediterranean Levantine Basin, an area of increased interest for energy resources exploration/exploitation, is presented in this work. In particular, an integrated hindcasting platform consisting of state-of-the-art wind-wave numerical models at a very high resolution mode is utilized to produce a 10-year database for the wave energy potential in the Levantine Basin and the environmental parameters that affect it. The numerical results are analyzed by means of a variety of statistical measures focusing, apart from the conventional statistical information, on the potential impact of extreme values and the probability distribution functions that optimally describe the spatial and temporal distribution of the wave power potential over the Eastern Mediterranean sea area. The regions with increased values of wave energy potential are mainly the western and southern coastlines of Cyprus island, the sea area of Lebanon and Israel, as well as the coastline of Egypt especially around Alexandria. Over these areas, relatively low but also stable, and hence exploitable, wave energy potential is revealed. However, non-trivial impact of infrequent values is also recorded.

The impact of sea surface currents in wave power potential modeling

“…In this way, the findings of previous studies on wave energy potential and assessment in the area (Vicinanza et al 2013;Aoun et al 2013;Zodiatis et al 2014) are further supported taking into account the impact of wave-current interaction.…”

“…Towards the analysis and study of the impact of sea surface currents to the wave energy potential, a number of test cases are presented based on the analysis of the wave characteristics and the corresponding wave energy potential itself. These cases cover a number of time periods of different wind/wave characteristics while the analysis is focusing on a series of locations with increased wave energy potential, according to the findings of Zodiatis et al 2014, which provided a first in-depth estimation of the wave energy potential in the same area of interest. The wind-wave characteristics are approached by means of stateof-the-art numerical atmospheric and wave models.…”

“…Within this framework, a number of studies have been proposed for the last years: a European wave energy atlas has been presented by Pontes (1998) and Falnes (2007) focused on the wave spectrum parameters related to the distribution of wave energy; power installations in the Baltic and North Seas have been investigated by Henfridsson et al (2007); the wave energy potential along the southeast US Atlantic coast has been studied by Defne et al (2009); and Carballo (2009, 2010) analyzed the wave energy distribution in Spanish coastline; Arinaga and Cheung (2012) presented a 10-year hindcast modeling study; the energy potential in the Azores islands is the subject of Rusu and Soares (2012); The Black Sea area was studied by a wave energy point of view in Akpınar and Kömürcü (2013); Vicinanza et al (2013) focused on the area of Sardinia, Italy; Aoun et al (2013) on Lebanon sea areas; Zodiatis et al (2014) on the Levantine Sea area in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, while corresponding studies for the European Atlantic coastline have been published by van Nieuwkoop et al (2013) and Gonçalves et al (2014) and for non-European areas by Hughes and Heap (2010); Hemer and Griffin (2010); Lenee-Bluhm et al (2011); Stopa et al (2011), Chiu et al (2013, and Morim et al (2014).…”

“…The same region was the target area of Zodiatis et al (2014) in which a general wave energy study has been provided without, however, taking into account any possible influence of the sea currents.…”

Marine Renewable Energy in the Mediterranean Sea: Status and Perspectives

“…In [167], the wave energy potential focusing on the Eastern Mediterranean Levantine basin has been studied. Based on high resolution wind-wave numerical models, results show that, in Eastern Mediterranean, the highest energy potential values are met off the western and southern offshore areas of Cyprus and offshore the coasts of Lebanon, Israel and Egypt.…”