Towards an optimum design of wave energy converter arrays through an integrated approach of life cycle performance and operational capacity

Over the last few decades, several efforts have been made to develop an alternative and sustainable energy source from wind waves. To achieve financial sustainability of this technology, most of the research has focused on analyzing facilities composed of several wave energy converters (WECs) arrays instead of isolated ones. Although the interaction between devices and its implications on the performance of the facilities have been studied previously, these works considered only certain combinations of sea states, limiting the applicability of the results. This work applies a new methodology based on statistical methods to assess the performance of different WEC array distributions during their entire life-cycle in an efficient way, using downscaling techniques and advanced numerical modeling to propagate the wave climate. The results obtained during the hindcasting life-cycle are used to analyze the maintenance and operation capabilities of the different alternatives of arrays defined for the WEC facility. The interactions between devices and their efficiency considering the associated impact are also quantified. The assessment of these efficiencies during the complete life-cycle of the devices is highly valuable tool for promoters and coastal managers to evaluate different WEC array alternatives. The entire process was applied to a hypothetical array location in the Gulf of Cádiz (southwestern Spain), where three different array distributions were defined. The results show that the distance between WECs is a key parameter that controls the potential energy production, the efficiency of the facility and the interactions between several devices.