Abstract
Ocean waves being considered to have huge potential on providing renewable energy resources. While significant research and application of wave energy converters have been conducted in many seas, exploration on low-energy seas is still an ongoing endeavour. In this study, a point absorber array is being studied in the scenario of implementing at low-energy site within Caspian Sea.
The primary objective of this study is to give an optimal layout for a point absorber array with five devices. Firstly, hydrodynamic analysis is conducted by Boundary Element Method using a frequency domain model in NEMOH and WEC-Sim. Layouts with different spacing factor are examined to obtain the power matrices for each case. The q-factor, a measure that quantifies the WEC array’s power absorption efficiency, and annual power production are readily calculated. Furthermore, given the annual energy production, an economic model is built to assess the CapEx, OpEx and LCOE, the Levelized Cost of Energy of the WEC array with different layouts.
The final optimization phase finds a solution that simultaneously maximizes the q-factor and minimizes the LCOE by executing a multi-objective algorithm. The best layout configuration for the point absorbers array in the Caspian Sea site is determined, taking into account both high energy output and economic viability.