A Marine Spatial Planning Framework to Analyse the Opportunity to Combine Wind and Wave Energy

Recently has been suggested by some authors that resource diversity may be used to manage the variability of renewable power and lower the system integration costs of renewables. The key benefit, deriving from the diversification of the mix of renewable technologies, lies in the possibility of reducing the variability of the produced power. As MREIs develop, it is likely to result in further transformation of coastal seas, already affected by significant pressure from human activities. In this perspective, both the potential for combining different renewable technologies, and the impact associated to such development should be considered in the context of the existing pressures. The spatial conflicts of sea uses and the demand for sea space are in fact increasingly growing and quantitative MSP criteria may help to evaluate the sustainability of conflicting human activities in the perspective of the minimization of the overall environmental impacts. In this study the opportunity of co-locating offshore wind turbines and wave energy converters is analyzed through a MSP approach.