Wave energy resource assessment around Kyushu based on numerical hindcast

Abstract

After the disaster in the Tohoku region of Japan, as a part of recovery projects, wave energy has been drawing attention. To promote wave energy technologies, including wave energy converters (WECs), this study aims to present comprehensive analyses of wave climates around Kyushu, which is the southernmost and third largest of Japan's four main islands. This paper calculates wave climate around Kyushu for ten years (2007–2016) using the Simulating WAves Nearshore model with an approximately 800 m high spatial and 1-h temporal resolution. The results reveal that the south side of Kyushu has more energetic waves than the north and the southeast has the strongest energy among neighboring seas of Kyushu. In the southeast, the major portion of the wave energy transport is generated by extreme weather events. Wave climates in the southwest are less affected by extreme weather events, and the wave energy transport shows the opposite tendency to that of the southeast, suggesting that wave energy production in the southeast and southwest can supply high stable energy. Statistical wave characteristics in the southeast and southwest also show markedly different tendencies to each other, which provides vital information for future designing, deploying, and tuning of WECs on the south side of Kyushu.