Abstract
In the struggle against increasing global warming, wave renewable energy could help progress to the increasingly necessary renewable-based energy-mix. Wave energy has many applications, one of which involves its capture and conversion into usable energy. To date, there has been no agreement in the scientific community with respect to a single wave energy converter design, and given the numerous concepts involved, many approaches have been developed to investigate the performance of these different devices. This work summarises these approaches in addition to completing and extending them regarding wave spectrum, wave direction, generator capacity limitations, and use of the Froude similarity law for wave energy converter scaling. Ultimately, this study aims to improve the selection process of the most appropriate converter configuration for a given resource (i.e. wave distribution climate). The main results showed that neglecting the wave direction can lead to a 10 % energy production overestimation when the method is applied to the Wavepiston device. Furthermore, for Weptos and Wavepiston wave energy converters, different standard wave spectra were found to estimate the energy production with less than 8 % difference, below the 16.5 % estimated in previous studies. Additionally, the Reverse Froude Law method is introduced to help assess the applicability of the Froude similarity law for converter configuration scaling. Finally, a threshold in the decrease of generator capacity is determined such that, despite limiting the device power production potential, annual energy production remained almost as high as without generator limitations for an approximately 40 % capacity factor increase.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Artikelnummer | 118716 |
| Tidsskrift | Applied Energy |
| Vol/bind | 312 |
| ISSN | 0306-2619 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 15 apr. 2022 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:Generally, this research was not subsidised by means of grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Nevertheless, most of this research was conducted under Postgraduate Research Scholarships of the first author who would like to acknowledge Griffith University for this support and later the Institute of Oceanography of the University of São Paulo and CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) /PROEX (Programa de Excelência Acadêmica) provided a Doctor of Science research scholarship, processo 88887.614992/2021-0, that the first author would like to acknowledge too. Wavepiston provided a large part of the employed dataset of configurations and wave climates. The Energy Tool to assess pairs of sites and Wavepiston configuration power productions was provided by the Technical University of Denmark. We would also like to acknowledge Wave Dragon, Erik Friis-Madsen, and Weptos. A final thanks to Steve Burns for the English proof-reading, and to Michael Henriksen, Robert Read, Harry Bingham, Rodger Tomlinson, Amir Etemad-Shahidi, Fernando Pinheiro Andutta, and Axel Bendali for their support and advice with respect to the overall research project of which this work forms a part. This research received no external funding. Ophelie Choupin (first and corresponding author) conducted the research and wrote first manuscript and conducted most of the revisions. Jens Peter Kofoed, Francesco Ferri, and Amelie Têtu supervised the research and brought relevant knowledge to the first author. Amelie Têtu provided the most significant contribution to the first draft manuscript revisions. Beatriz del Rio Gamero provided constant support, revisions, and advice to improve the manuscript and furnished a part of the program. Francesco Ferri developed the numerical model for Weptos to verify the effect of the wave frequency spectrum on energy production estimations. He also provided a major structural revision of the manuscript.
Funding Information:
Generally, this research was not subsidised by means of grants from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Nevertheless, most of this research was conducted under Postgraduate Research Scholarships of the first author who would like to acknowledge Griffith University for this support and later the Institute of Oceanography of the University of São Paulo and CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeicoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior) /PROEX (Programa de Excelência Acadêmica) provided a Doctor of Science research scholarship, processo 88887.614992/2021-0, that the first author would like to acknowledge too. Wavepiston provided a large part of the employed dataset of configurations and wave climates. The Energy Tool to assess pairs of sites and Wavepiston configuration power productions was provided by the Technical University of Denmark. We would also like to acknowledge Wave Dragon, Erik Friis-Madsen, and Weptos. A final thanks to Steve Burns for the English proof-reading, and to Michael Henriksen, Robert Read, Harry Bingham, Rodger Tomlinson, Amir Etemad-Shahidi, Fernando Pinheiro Andutta, and Axel Bendali for their support and advice with respect to the overall research project of which this work forms a part.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
Emneord
- Annual energy production
- Capacity factor
- Froude similarity law
- Wave climate representation
- Wave Energy Converter (WEC)
- WEC configuration and resource pairing