Abstract
Power performance modeling of wave energy converters have historically focused on utility power applications using devices with a characteristic dimension or width on the same order of magnitude as the wavelength. There is a growing interest in using wave energy for Powering the Blue Economy applications, which are non-grid tied and, in some cases, have lower power requirements. We dentified this as a gap in wave energy research and initiated the Small WEC Modeling Project with two main objectives: 1) to model and assess the power performance of a range of WEC architypes and physical sizes with a characteristic dimension of 2-meters to 20-meters; 2) to make data produced by the project publicly available through an interactive tool. The modeling and analysis features four commonly referenced WEC models: a fixed reference point absorber, a floating two-body point absorber, an oscillating surge device, and an attenuator type device. The modeling process included three main steps. First, each device model was geometrically scaled to produce a range of sizes in clear increments. Second, WAMIT was used to analyze wave interactions on each hydrodynamic body and to estimate the hydrodynamic coefficients. Third, the Wave Energy Converter Simulator (WEC-Sim) was used to conduct a time-domain simulation for each model in full-scale waves. Preliminary analysis of simulated results has provided a range of power outputs that can be used for several different analysis activities. The Small WEC Analysis interactive online repository and data visualization tool has launched on OpenEI. The primary use for the tool is to give stakeholders an easy way to compare power output for a variety of WEC architypes and sizes. It is often difficult to compare the power output of different technologies, or understand how performance scales given that little work has been made public regarding modeling results of small devices. Therefore, this should allow for a faster evaluation of technologies, and provide needed data for initial techno-economic feasibility studies. Additionally, this will be the first of its kind in allowing for visual exploration and comparison of different technologies and scales. This work was funded under the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office’s Powering the Blue Economy portfolio.