Section Heading
Gross Wave Energy Resource Versus Exploitable Wave Energy Resource –
Towards a Superior Method of Energy Analysis
There is currently a large range of technologies designed to exploit
wave energy all at different stages of development, from initial ideas
on the backs of envelopes to full-scale commercial prototypes
deployed in some of the most aggressive and energetic seas in the
world. However, the exploitation of wave energy remains limited,
and large-scale wave farms are yet to be developed. This is partly
because wave energy technology remains in its infancy and is
approximately 20 years behind the development of wind turbine
technology. Wave energy is also hampered by the lack of a clear
assessment of wave energy resource, which is required to provide an
economic argument for the development of wave farms.
It may at first seem a relatively simple task to calculate the wave
energy resource. Years of observational data on waves together with
modern computer simulations of the world’s oceans mean that it is
possible to estimate which waves occur at a particular site with a
relatively high level of confidence and accuracy. The hydrodynamics
of waves are relatively well understood and so it would seem that
the average wave energy resource can be calculated by simply
combining these two pieces of knowledge to produce the average
gross wave energy resource. Indeed, this has been done and maps
showing estimates of the average gross wave energy resource can be
readily downloaded from the Internet.
Maps of the average gross wave energy resource may be able to
indicate on a global scale the more promising locations for wave
farms – for example, not surprisingly they show that the Atlantic
Ocean has a much larger wave energy resource than the
Mediterranean Sea. However, they tell us nothing about the
characteristics of the wave energy resource and how well suited it is
for exploitation.
A brief review of how wind energy resource is typically defined can
help to throw light on the complexity of resource estimation. It is
well known that wind power density increases with the cube of the
wind speed. Therefore, a simple calculation of the gross wind energy
resource would involve multiplying the probability of occurrence of
each wind speed with the cube of that wind speed to determine its
contribution to the gross wind energy resource.
Biography
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2 © TOUCH BRIEFINGS 2009
a report by
Matt Folley
Queen’s University Belfast
However, this method of calculation is rarely used because the
higher wind speeds make an overly large contribution to the wind
energy resource. The contribution from high wind speeds is overly
large because wind turbines generally become less efficient at high
wind speeds and are limited by their generator rating so that,
although the wind energy resource physically exists, it is not
generally exploitable. In actuality, average wind speed is commonly
used as an effective measure of wind energy resource, which is
clearly at variance with the cubic relationship between wind speed
and wind power density, but it does effectively limit the contribution
of very high wind speeds to the average wind energy resource.
Returning to wave energy, the question is: ‘Is there a more suitable
measure of wave energy resource than one that simply includes all
of the wave energy passing through a particular point?’ Specifically,
is there a measure that accounts appropriately for the range of
parameters that make up the wave energy resource and that is also
suitable for the large range of device concepts that currently exist
including offshore, nearshore and shoreline technologies? In
particular, the resource measure must not distort selection of the
most promising technologies because the resource measure is either
overly generous or overly pessimistic for any one technology or
group of technologies.
It may be questioned why wave energy resource needs to be reduced
to a single value; after all, it is inherently complex and so not very
suitable for such a severe reduction. A multiple-valued or parametric
measure of wave energy resource would seem more
appropriate. However, a single-valued (gross) wave energy resource
is extremely convenient for the calculation of total potential wave
energy resource for regions, countries and globally. This is because
it will be used to inform investment decisions based on potential
levels of return and can be easily understood by non-technical
decision-makers. A single-valued wave energy resource is also useful
for the initial assessment of a wave farm site’s potential yield, where
it must be decided whether a site is likely to be economically viable
and therefore worthy of further investment. Thus, the ‘market pull’
for a single-valued wave energy resource is extremely strong and it
is wise to accept that, in reality, it will be used to make strategic
decisions irrespective of its actual appropriateness.
Given that a single-valued measure of wave energy resource will be
used, it is clearly important that this measure provide the most
accurate indication of what the yield of a wave farm will be; however,
the gross wave energy resource is inadequate for this in two
significant ways. First, the gross wave energy resource includes all of
the incident wave energy, including all of the energy in highly
energetic seas, although in these seas the majority of wave energy
cannot be exploited. Second, the gross wave energy resource includes
 Gross Wave Energy Resource versus Exploitable Wave Energy Resource
the wave energy passing through a point irrespective of the direction
of propagation, but a wave farm will typically consist of a string of
wave energy converters orientated to face the predominant direction
of wave propagation. Thus, waves approaching from the sides will not
be fully available to any one converter in the wave farm because its
neighbours will have already extracted some of the wave energy.
That a wave farm will have a specific orientation is a consequence of
the characteristics of wave energy resource, which is concentrated
near the surface of the ocean and has a dominant direction of
propagation that requires many hundreds of kilometres of open
water to grow to exploitable levels. This is why the wave energy
resource is large in the North Atlantic, which has thousands of
kilometres of open water, and small in the Mediterranean Sea,
where the fetch length is much shorter. Thus, any wave energy
converter placed in the lee of another will have a smaller resource to
exploit due to the energy extracted by the first wave energy
converter and so is likely to be less productive. The natural
consequence of this is that a wave farm will undoubtedly consist of
a string of wave energy converters orientated to face the
predominant direction of wave propagation.
This is unlike the layout of a wind farm, which can be much more
flexible and 2D. Its layout is primarily determined by the local
topography and the distance downstream of a wind turbine required
for the wind energy resource to recover. Incidentally, this is an
important distinction between the layouts of wave and wind farms
that has not always been appreciated when comparing the seascape
usage of offshore wind farms and wave farms.
In place of gross wave energy resource, a superior measure of wave
energy resource would be one that includes only the wave energy that
is reasonably exploitable. Thus, the exploitable wave energy resource
must be able to discount the contribution of highly energetic sea-
states as well as the contribution from waves that are not travelling in
a direction orthogonal to the alignment of the wave farm.
The first of these constraints can be achieved by simply defining a
maximum wave power that a sea-state can contribute to the
resource. Arguments can be made for a number of different values
of maximum wave power, but four times the average incident wave
power is suggested as reasonable. This is because the typical load
factor of wave energy converters – about 30% – means electricity
generation from sea-states with higher powers than about four
times the average will most likely be limited by the generator rating
and should be discounted.
The second constraint can be achieved by resolving the incident
wave power to only include that which is travelling the same way as
the principal direction of wave energy propagation, since this is likely
to be the direction with which a wave farm will be aligned.
MODERN ENERGY REVIEW VOLUME 1
It remains to be seen how use of the exploitable wave energy
resource affects global maps of wave energy, but it will clearly help
to promote locations with more consistent and directionally
concentrated wave energy resources, which are highly desirable
characteristics for wave farm sites. However, at a local level this re-
definition of wave energy resource also changes the relationship
between offshore and near-shore resources in a significant way.
Using the traditional measure of gross wave energy resource, the
offshore wave energy resource is often quoted as being about twice
as large as the near-shore wave energy resource, where the
nearshore is defined as having a water depth of between 10 and 15
metres. This has led to the marginalisation of the near-shore as a
potential location for wave energy converters, even though it may
have a number of advantages such as a reduced distance to shore
and a smaller maximum wave height due to the larger waves
breaking further offshore.
Using the exploitable wave energy resource, however, the difference
between offshore and nearshore resources is generally significantly
reduced; the nearshore resource is often only 10–20% less than the
offshore resource. This is because as waves approach the shore they
are influenced by the seabed, which filters out the most energetic
waves while leaving the smaller, more exploitable waves largely
unaffected. It also refracts the waves so that they all approach from
a more concentrated directional sector. Thus, a much larger
proportion of the near,shore wave energy resource is exploitable
compared with the offshore wave energy resource. This means
that although there is a large difference between gross wave energy
resources, the difference between the exploitable wave energy
resources is much smaller.
Ultimately, modification of the definition of the wave energy
resource will not directly change the cost of generating electricity by
waves, but at this early stage in the development of wave energy
technology perceptions are important both within the industry and
in society in general.
While it is perhaps not actually dishonest, it is highly misleading to use
a measure of resource that includes energy that is technically
unexploitable. Thus, the historical use of gross wave energy resource is
misleading although it is likely that this has been due to a lack of rigour
rather than any attempt to increase the apparent resource artificially.
More significantly, the use of the gross wave energy resource has
inadvertently marginalised the development of nearshore wave
energy technologies as offshore wave energy technologies have
chased the unexploitable wave energy resource offshore.
Consequently, use of the exploitable wave energy resource will help
to level the playing field so that all technologies are assessed on
similar grounds and effort focused on genuinely promising wave
energy technologies unhindered by inappropriate measures of wave
energy resource. ■
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