Abstract
Despite the efforts of developers, investors and scientific community, the successful development of a competitive wave energy industry is proving elusive. One of the most important barriers against wave energy conversion is the efficiency of the devices compared with all the associated costs over the lifetime of an electricity generating plant, which translates into a very high Levelised Cost of Energy (LCoE) compared to that of other renewable energy technologies such as wind or solar photovoltaic. Furthermore, the industrial roll-out of Wave Energy Converter (WEC) devices is severely hampered by problems related to their reliability and operability, particularly in open waters and during harsh environmental sea conditions. WEC technologies in multi-purpose breakwaters—i.e., a structure that retains its primary function of providing sheltered conditions for port operations to develop and includes electricity production as an added co-benefit—appears to be a promising approach to improve cost-effectiveness in terms of energy production. This paper presents the proof of concept study of a novel hybrid-WEC (HWEC) that uses two well understood power generating technologies, air and water turbines, integrated in breakwaters, by means of a composite modelling approach. Preliminary results indicate: firstly, hybridisation is an adequate approach to harness the available energy most efficiently over a wide range of metocean conditions; secondly, the hydraulic performance of the breakwater improves; finally, no evident negative impacts in the overall structural stability specific to the integration were observed.
Highlights
Over the past years, global decarbonisation efforts have accelerated the quest for finding diverse, clean and renewable energy sources in order to achieve the targets in energy and climate that have been set out
Following this introductory section on the integration of Wave Energy Converter (WEC) into harbour defence structures and the novel concept HWEC, the present paper is organised as follows: Section 2 is devoted to the description of the performances of the Oscillating Water Column (OWC) integrated into a breakwater, while Section 3 describes the performances of the Overtopping Device (OTD) device embedded in breakwaters; J
With respect to the structural response/stability of the non-conventional breakwaters, there is no evidence to date of fundamental negative impacts affecting the overall stability of the structure that are specific to the integration
Summary
Global decarbonisation efforts have accelerated the quest for finding diverse, clean and renewable energy sources in order to achieve the targets in energy and climate that have been set out. Because wave energy is a sizeable prize, relentless and determined effort should continue to be put in order to find the solutions to overcome the similar challenges experienced by wave energy technologies while progressing through each development phase In this respect, many authors (e.g., [4,5,6]) argue that a good idea is integrating WEC devices in harbour defence structures, in so-called multi-purpose breakwaters. Water Column—OWC and the Overtopping Device—OTD), the HWEC concept is aiming to exploit the strengths of each technology and overcome their individual limitations when implemented separately, thereby presenting a breakthrough and efficient approach to harness the wave energy at ports Following this introductory section on the integration of WECs into harbour defence structures and the novel concept HWEC, the present paper is organised as follows: Section 2 is devoted to the description of the performances of the OWC integrated into a breakwater, while Section 3 describes the performances of the OTD device embedded in breakwaters;. Eng. 2021, 9, 226 the detailed description and discussion of the performances of the HWEC obtained with the physical and numerical model tests under the SE@PORTS project is presented in Section 4; the main conclusions are drawn in the last section
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
