Co-location of wave and wind power: Results from screening 226 locations worldwide

The levelized costs of energy (LCoE) of wave power is still not fully competitive with other sources of renewable energy. However, wave energy is partly in a different phase than other renewable energy types and could thus contribute to a better predictability and smoothed power output. This work focuses on co-location of wave and wind power by investigating the intermittency of wind and waves power based on measured historical data from several hundreds of locations worldwide. Employing wind power curves and wave power matrices, the sites are evaluated based on several different metrics. The results indicate that there are several spots where wave power has a much lower intermittency than wind power providing reliable energy supply. Best sites for co-location in terms of energy yield was found in North-Western Europe. However, both wind and wave production have the same seasonal variability in these sites. Only a handful of sites found in California showed the possibility of seasonal power smoothing using the combination of wind and wave.