A parallel evaluation of the wind and wave energy resources along the Latin American and European coastal environments

Abstract

Considering the trend to develop renewable projects in marine environment, the objective of the present work is to provide a comprehensive picture of the wind and wave energy for some significant coastal sites from Latin America and Europe. Thus, a reanalysis database that covers 17 years of wind and wave data (2000–2016) is considered, evaluating also some statistical parameters. In this way, we identified the most interesting sites for a marine project. At the same time, the performance of five wind turbines (Senvion 6.2M 126, BARD 5.0, SWT–3.6 –120, Vestas V90–3.0 and Vestas V80–2.0) and five wave energy converters (Wave Dragon, PPC, Pelamis, Aqua Buoy, Seabased AB) is also assessed. The results show that in Latin America, the coastal region located close to Tierra del Fuego presents the best wind resources, indicating a maximum wind power value of 1759 W/m2 (at 80 m height). This is relatively similar to the conditions encountered at the Carloway site, in Europe close to Ireland (1778 W/m2). As regards wave power, a maximum value of 82.59 kW/m is assessed for the Carloway site. According to the total harmonic distortion index, the best sites to develop a joint wind-wave project are in Latin America, where for this index most of the values are below the 0.8 limit. Looking at the performances of wind and wave generators, we notice a maximum power output of 4.26 MW for the Senvion 6.2M 126 turbine, compared to an expected electric power of 2.64 MW, which results for the Wave Dragon energy converter. The results show that the capacity factors of the wave systems are significantly smaller than in case of the wind turbines.