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    Wave energy trends over the Bay of Biscay and the consequences for wave energy converters


    Ulazia, Alain, Penalba, Markel, Ibarra-Berastegui, Gabriel, Ringwood, John and Sáenz, Jon (2017) Wave energy trends over the Bay of Biscay and the consequences for wave energy converters. Energy, 141. pp. 624-634. ISSN 0360-5442

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    Abstract

    This is one of the pioneer and preliminary attempt to study the influence of wave energy trends on the absorbed power of wave energy converters. For that purpose, the reanalysis of the past century ERA20 has been calibrated via quantile-matching against the reanalysis ERA-Interim in their intersection period (1979–2010). The validation against four buoys in the Bay of Biscay is presented in this paper, showing a better agreement of ERA-Interim-WAM model when compared to the original ERA20. In addition, calibrated ERA20 shows a significant error reduction compared to the original ERA20. Hence, calibrated ERA20 presents an increment of the wave energy resource, more than 1 kW/m per decade, in the area of study and a general increment of the wave height and wave period throughout the analyzed decades. Finally, using the calibrated series at a given gridpoint in the bay, power absorption of a generic wave energy converter (WEC) is examined, combining the power matrix of the WEC and the two-variable (wave height and period) probability density functions (PDF) of the five do-decades of the past century. Results show important variations of the PDF, which results in significant differences, up to a 15% increase between two do-decades, in the annual mean power production.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Wave energy trends; ERA-Interim; ERA-20C; Wave energy converters; Fluid mechanics;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Science and Engineering > Electronic Engineering
    Faculty of Science and Engineering > Research Institutes > Centre for Ocean Energy Research
    Item ID: 11774
    Identification Number: 10.1016/j.energy.2017.09.099
    Depositing User: Professor John Ringwood
    Date Deposited: 20 Nov 2019 17:32
    Journal or Publication Title: Energy
    Publisher: Elsevier
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    URI: https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/11774
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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