Benefits of up-wave measurements in linear short-term wave forecasting for wave energy applications

The real-time control of wave energy converters requires the prediction of the wave elevation at the location of the device in order to maximize the power extracted from the waves. One possibility is to predict the future wave elevation by combining its past history with the spatial information coming from a sensor which measures the free surface elevation up-wave of the wave energy converter. As an application example, the paper focuses on the prediction of the wave elevation inside the chamber of the oscillating water column (OWC) for the PICO OWC plant in the Azores, and two different sensors for the measurement of the free surface elevation up-wave of the oscillating water column were tested. The study showed that the use of the additional information coming from the up-wave sensor does not significantly improve the linear prediction of the chamber wave elevation given by a forecasting model based only on the past values of the chamber wave elevation. © 2014 IEEE.