Abstract
Renewable energy offers significant value for powering microgrids but requires battery storage to balance energy loads because they are intermittent and unpredictable. We present a framework and methodology herein for augmenting maritime microgrids with wave energy to augment their stability via theoretical wave energy resource assessment, wave energy converter (WEC) simulation, technical resource assessment, cost analysis, and optimal microgrid design. As a case study, we investigate wave power augmentation of a solar powered microgrid system in Puerto Rico, to reduce solar intermittency and battery storage requirements. Results show that WEC farms, even in regions with low wave energy resources, while not eliminating battery storage needs and increasing overall project costs, can significantly reduce battery storage requirements, installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity, and the PV array land-use requirements. Even with high WEC farm capital costs, the cost increases from hybrid solar-wave microgrid designs may be acceptable given the potential for improving energy resiliency, e.g., maintaining critical services following severe disasters that incapacitate solar PV, and given formidable land-use constraints. Improvements in the techno-economic performance of the hybrid solar-wave microgrid designs in Puerto Rico will require improvements in WEC conversion efficiency, and significant reductions in WEC device, permitting, and installation costs.