Characterizing Ireland's wave energy resource

Abstract

In theory, the energy that could be extracted from the oceans is well in excess of any current, or future, human requirements. While wave energy currently lags behind conventional, carbon based sources of power and other renewable sources of energy such as wind and solar, advances continue to be made. The developers of Wave Energy Converters (WECs), the devices that are designed to harness the power of ocean waves, require methods to compare and evaluate the wave energy resource at different locations in order to allow them to select the most suitable sites to achieve optimal power capture and economic performance from their installations. The focus of my Ph.D. research is towards developing new methods for characterizing the wave energy resource off the west coast of Ireland with reference to the potential power available and the performance of typical devices, and also to allow for the comparison of possible sites ...