Abstract
The opportunity to co-locate wind and wave energy exploitation is analysed in the Italian seas grounding on the rationale that benefits are greater when un-correlated resources are combined. The study shows that, although waves and winds are generally strongly correlated, in some conditions their correlation is lower and the combined energy harvesting more interesting. As spatial conflicts of sea use and demand for maritime space are increasingly growing, the development of the marine renewable energy sector needs to be evaluated in the perspective of the complex framework of existing uses, pressures and foresees developments. The early prediction of the areas of potential conflicts creates in fact the ground for mitigation actions or early negotiations between stakeholders. In this study the opportunity of co-locating offshore wind turbines and wave energy converters is analysed through a spatial planning approach. Both the potential for combining different renewable technologies, and the impact associated to such development was considered in the context of the existing pressures (e.g. naval traffic; mariculture activities; submarine cables routes; dredg spoils dumping; offshore activities; windfarms and ocean energy projects) and vulnerabilities (Marine Protected Areas, Key habitat presence) through quantitative indicators. The western coast off Sardinia island, the southern areas of Pantelleria island and the Tunisian coastal waters appear to be the most suitable sites. The study shows how quantitative spatial planning methods may support the selection of the sites of potential interest for the marine renewable energy sector in the perspective of cost-effectiveness and environmental impact minimization.
Highlights
The marine environment represents a vast source of renewable energy
Wave Energy Converters (WECs) have been identified as a technology with the potential to offer a significant contribution in the medium to long term (Liu et al, 2017)
In order to reduce the dimensionality of the meteo-climatic dataset, Principal Component (PCA) and Factor (FA) and Cluster Analyses (CA) (Afifi and Clark, 1996) have been used
Summary
Ocean renewable energy infrastructures could contribute significantly to the future energy power supply (Ocean Energy Systems, 2017). Among the different developed marine renewable technologies, marine wind energy is the most mature type as regards technological development, commercialization, policy. Most of the interest is focused on the development of new offshore solutions, such as wind turbines with larger rotors, deep water sites and floating platform (e.g., Hywind Scotland project www.statoil.com) (Onea et al, 2017). Floating technology can be considered as a commercially viable solution in order to harness available wind resource at greater depth (>50 m) where the conventional fixed offshore wind turbines are no more economically feasible (McMillan and Ault, 2010). In 2017 wave energy deployments have doubled its capacity respect to the previous year, up to 8 MW (Ocean Energy Systems, 2017)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have