Author(s): H. Fernandez; R. Carballo; G. Iglesias; S. Schimmels
Linked Author(s): Stefan Schimmels
Keywords: Wave impact assessment; Wave energy farm; Numerical modelling; Physical modelling; WaveCat wave energy converter
Abstract: The commercial exploitation of wave energy has two main requirements: the wave energy potential has to be further assessed due to the temporal and spatial variations that this resource presents, and efficient, reliable and low environmental impact Wave Energy Converters (WECs) have to be developed. Furthermore, to make wave energy economically viable, the WECs should not work as a single device, but they are grouped to operate together forming the so-called wave farms (like in the case of the wind farms), in which the electricity from each single device is derived to a common unit and later transported onshore through a subsea cable. Thus, the cost of transporting the electricity from offshore to onshore location is considerably reduced, because the cost of the subsea cable is shared. The present work deals with the impact of wave energy exploitation in the area close to the wave farm with real waveWEC interaction conditions. In this case, the wave farm is composed of Wave Cat WECs and the study is conducted at the Galician coast (NW Spain) where the first wave farm of this technology is expected to be deployed. The Simulating WAves Nearshore (SWAN) numerical model is employed to perform the wave propagation from deep waters towards shallow waters throughout the wave farm, in this sense, three different wave farm arrays were simulated. It is important to comment that the transmission coefficients for simulating the wave attenuation caused by the WECs were gathered from physical experiments, which were conducted with a Wave Cat 1: 30 scale floating model at the wave basin of the Faculty of Engineering of University of Porto. The results from the simulations are reported and described, consequently the impact caused by the different wave farm arrays is analysed and compared. Besides, the optimal wave farm layout in terms of minimizing the wakes and therefore increasing the wave farm power output is discovered.
Year: 2014