Matt Folley, Bjoern Elsaesser & Trevor Whittaker 1

Analysis of the wave energy resource at the European Marine Energy Centre
Matt Folley, SPACE, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland Bjoern Elsaesser, RPS Group Plc, Belfast, Northern Ireland Trevor Whittaker, SPACE, Queens University Belfast, Northern Ireland

Introduction
It is now generally accepted that the depletion of oil and gas reserves together with climate change mean that a greater amount of our future energy supplies will need to come from renewable sources. The UK government has a target of producing 20% of the UKs electricity from renewable sources by 2020; including a target for marine renewable energy of 2 GW of installed capacity by the same date. However, marine renewable is currently in the early stages of development and no standard configuration of the technology exists. This reproduces the status of the wind energy industry 25 years ago when a large range of different concepts for the exploitation of wind energy were proposed and investigated. This diversity of solutions is probably inherent to the development of novel technology; although this can easily be forgotten when in retrospect the solution to which the industry has converged often seems obvious. In wind energy this is evidenced by the near ubiquitous deployment of three-bladed horizontal-axis wind turbines with the other solutions, which existed 25 years ago, now being given little consideration. Identification of the more promising technological configurations depends on amongst other things understanding the wave power resource and how this resource interacts with the technology. In general it would seem reasonable to assume that a technology that experiences a significantly larger wave energy resource will be more promising than a technology that experiences a smaller wave energy resource. However, this apparently simple rule hides a complexity regarding how to define the wave energy resource that could lead to incorrect conclusions if an inappropriate measure of the wave energy resource were used. This paper discusses and develops an appropriate measure of the wave energy resource and then applies this to the wave energy resource at the deep water and nearshore test berths at the wave test centre of EMEC (European Marine Energy Centre) to determine how the wave energy resource differs for these two sites.

Representation of the wave energy resource

Historically, wave data has not been collected to determine the wave energy resource but to provide information for the design of breakwaters, harbours, ocean-going vessels, etc. The wave data is typically provided as a scatter diagram or time series of significant wave heights and mean

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wave periods, which is then used in modelling to ensure the proposed breakwater, etc., is adequate. It would seem simple and sensible to simply calculate the wave power density for each sea-state using the significant wave height and mean wave period (assuming a representative wave spectrum), which can then be averaged to provide a value for the average incident wave power density. However, this method of calculating the average incident wave power density has two weaknesses; it does not account appropriately for the directional distribution of the incident waves and it does not provide appropriate weightings for highly energetic sea-states. The effect of wave directionality on power capture will depend on the particular device and wave farm geometric configuration. For example, an isolated heaving buoy will respond independently of direction to the incident waves, whilst a surging device will respond more to head-on waves than waves that approach from the side (Evans 1976). This makes it difficult to define a single measure of the wave energy resource that would be appropriate for the calculation of potential power capture in all scenarios. However, if wave farms are considered then the wave energy resource available to a wave farm, as opposed to that available to the individual devices, is equal to the wave power density incident on the extent of the wave farm. Wave farms are likely to consist of devices strung-out in lines orthogonal to the mean direction of wave propagation and the wave energy resource is related to the wave energy crossing this line. That is, the appropriate wave energy resource is directionally-resolved. An important consequence of this definition of the wave energy resource is that refraction is unlikely to reduce the wave energy resource significantly. Indeed, where the line of the wave farm is parallel to the bathymetric depth contours then the directionally-resolved measure of the wave energy resource is not affected by refraction irrespective of the direction of wave propagation; this fundamental relationship can be most easily understood by recognising that refraction is an energy-conserving process. The resource variability must also be considered in defining the wave energy resource. Nonlinearities in a devices hydrodynamics and the rating of the electro-mechanical will mean that device performance, as measured by the power captured divided by the incident wave power density, is restricted in highly energetic sea-states. Indeed, limited plant rating means that in general wave power density in excess of a threshold power level is unexploitable and that it would be appropriate to discount the contribution to the wave energy resource in sea-states beyond a particular power level. The incident wave power density level threshold at which no increase in power capture occurs will depend on the device/wave farm hydrodynamics and the plant rating so no definitive value of the threshold exists. However, many wave energy converters are proposed to have load factors of between 25% 40% (which is a similar load factor to wind turbines) and so allowing for deterioration in the hydrodynamic efficiency in highly energetic sea-states a reasonable value for the threshold power level may be four times the average incident wave power density. The significance of this new definition of the wave energy resource can be judged when it is recognised that in many offshore sites over 10% of the annual wave energy resource can arrive during a storm that lasts for less than 1 day (0.3% of the time) based on an average wave power density during the storm of 2 MW/m and an annual average wave power density of 50 kW/m, which are reasonable values for the North Atlantic. It is now possible to define a measure of the wave energy resource that is appropriate for the analysis of wave energy converters, which here is termed the average exploitable wave power density. The average exploitable wave power density is equal to the mean value of the incident wave power density where the incident wave power density is directionally-resolved and limited

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to four-times its mean value. This new measure of the wave energy resource can be very different from the simple measure of wave energy resource where this difference increases with the directional distribution of the incident waves and the propensity for highly energetic sea-states. It is relevant to note that both the directional distribution and propensity for highly energetic seastates decrease as the waves approach the coast due to refraction and wave breaking respectively. The effect of these processes means that difference between the deep water wave energy resource and the nearshore wave energy resource is smaller than a simple analysis of the wave climate would suggest.

European Marine Energy Centre

Figure 1: Location of EMEC wave test centre (source: EMEC website) The wave energy converter test centre of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) was setup in October 2003 to provide a dedicated facility for the testing of full-scale prototype wave energy converters (EMEC 2009). EMEC is located in the Orkney Islands, Scotland and the test centre for wave energy converters is at Billia Croo on the Orkney mainland. The wave energy converter test centre includes four deep water test berths, all with water depths of approximately 50 metres, together with a single nearshore test berth, with a water depth of approximately 12 metres. All of these test berths are exposed to the highly energetic North Atlantic wave climate and represent typical locations for the commercial deployment of wave energy converters. Figure 1 shows the location of the wave energy converter test site at EMEC.

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Modelling the EMEC wave climate The EMEC wave climate is modelled using the wind and wave records offshore to the west of Orkney from the European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) European Waters Wave Model. The data is for a point at 5W, 59N for the period Jan 1997 to Dec 2005, which is approximately 22 nautical miles north of Cape Wrath immediately between Nun and Solan Bank with a water depth of around 70m LAT. The data set includes the wind-wave component and swell-wave component in addition to wind speed and direction. The bathymetry for the wave transformation to the site was taken from the bathymetric surveys commissioned by EMEC (Fathoms Survey of Billia Croo, June 2002). The latest digital charts from C-MAP were used to provide model bathymetry outside the area of the hydrographical survey. The wave transformation models were carried out using two overlapping bathymetries as shown in Figure 2. Each bathymetry has a range of wave directions in excess of 30 from the principal orientation to cover the full range of waves which reach the site.

Figure 2: Orientation of bathymetries with location of offshore wave point and site of device The wave transformation from offshore to the site was undertaken using DHIs MIKE 21 Nearshore Spectral Wind Wave model (DHI 2008). This model is a stationary, directionally decoupled parametric wind-wave model that describes the propagation, growth and decay of waves in nearshore areas. The model takes into account the effects of refraction and shoaling due to varying depth, local wind generation and energy dissipation due to bottom friction and wave breaking. The basic equations in the model are derived from the conservation equation for the spectral wave action density. A parameterisation of the conservation equation in the frequency domain is performed by introducing the zeroth and the first moments of the action spectrum as

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dependent variables. The basic equations are solved using an Eulerian finite difference technique. The zeroth and the first moments of the action spectrum are calculated on a rectangular grid for a number of discrete directions. A once-through marching procedure is applied in the predominant direction of wave propagation. The basic output from the model is the integral wave parameters such as the significant wave height, the mean wave period, the mean wave direction, the directional standard deviation (wave spreading) and radiation stresses. An example of the wave transformation for waves approaching at 270 is shown Figure 3. Vectors indicate the mean wave direction and contours are coloured by significant wave height.

Figure 3: Map of EMEC wave climate The offshore wave climate derived from the ECMWF model was used to provide 3 hourly data of both swell wave and wind wave components. The swell and wind waves were transformed separately from offshore to the site using the MIKE21 NSW model, so that the model simulated conditions where there are differences in the wind wave and swell directions. The swell and wind waves were then combined on an energy basis at the site; the energy was calculated for the resulting combined wave spectrum. The transformation included all offshore wave directions which reach the site, i.e. offshore directions of 240 through to 360. The particular model orientation was selected at each time step to suit the direction of the offshore waves and/or winds at that time step. The wind waves were taken as being of the JONSWAP spectral form and the

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swell waves a Pierson-Moscowitz spectral form. Directional spreading was incorporated from the offshore boundaries by inclusion of the directional spreading function cosn; with an index n of 5 being used for wind waves and 12 for swell waves. The maximum deviation was taken as 30 for wind waves and 15 for swell waves. Wave breaking was included in the transformation using the parameters Gamma1, which relates to the deep water wave steepness, Gamma2 depth limited wave breaking and Alpha which is a dissipation function. Under normal conditions the wind waves were modelled with the inclusion of the wind wave generation within the model space. As the wind wave generation formulae already incorporated energy losses due to white capping i.e. deep water wind wave breaking, the parameters used for the wind wave transformations were Gamma1 = 1.0, Gamma2 = 0.8 and Alpha = 1. For the swell waves the transformation did not include wind generated waves but the same factors were used. These are standard values used within the MIKE21 NSW model which have been established through numerous model studies. Analysis of the EMEC wave climate The wave energy resource at three potential sites is modelled to provide a measure of the EMEC wave climate. The site locations are in water depths of 50 metres at the most westerly site, 30 metres at the centre site and 10 metres at the most easterly site. These three depths are chosen as being representative for deep water, intermediate water and shallow water wave energy converter sites. The deep water site is close to the EMEC deep water wave berths and the nearshore site is close to the EMEC nearshore wave berth. In addition, the wave energy resource at the model boundary, approximately 40 kilometres to the west of Orkney, is also calculated. The wave energy resource is analysed by calculating the average omni-directional (gross) incident wave power density, the average directionally-resolved (net) incident wave power density and the average exploitable incident wave power density for each site. In addition, the wave energy resource at the model boundary is also separated into the resource that includes wave power from all directions and the resource that is travelling towards EMEC and used in the Mike21 NSW model. The incident wave power density is calculated using the significant wave height and by assuming that the group velocity is equal to that of a wave with the same mean wave period. Although this is not entirely accurate, a more accurate calculation requires the spectral shape, which is not available. Moreover, comparison of the incident wave power density calculated using the mean wave period and a more rigorous calculation using a typical wave spectrum indicated that the difference between the values obtained from two methods do not differ significantly. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the incident wave power densities calculated are reasonable estimates. A summary of the results of the wave energy resource analysis is shown in Figure 4.

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45 40 Average incident wave power (kW) 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Offshore (all directions) Offshore 50m deep wave site 30m deep wave site 10m deep wave site

Gross power

Net power

Exploitable power

Figure 4: Wave energy resource at EMEC It can be seen in Figure 4 that the gross incident wave power density at the model boundary is approximately 40 kW/m. This is slightly lower than would be expected for a North Atlantic site to the west of Scotland, where a gross incident wave power density of 50 kW/m would be expected (Taylor & Motion 2005). However, it can be seen in Figure 1 that the Scottish mainland and Outer Hebrides shield the site from waves approaching directly from the South-West, which is the most energetic component of the wave climate at this latitude. It can also be seen that approximately 15% of the wave energy is travelling in a direction that propagates it away from EMEC. This proportion of the wave energy resource travelling away from the coastline has been found previously for a location 30 40 kilometres from the coast and could be considered typical for this area of the North Atlantic (Folley & Whittaker 2009). Propagation of the wave resource from the model boundary to the EMEC wave berths results in a reduction in the average gross incident wave power density of between 30% for the deep and intermediate depth sites and 41% for the nearshore site. This reduction in average gross incident wave power density is the result of a combination of dissipative processes such as bed friction and white capping together with refraction. As noted earlier, it is important to consider refraction distinctly because it does not change the wave power travelling orthogonally to the depth contours. This is shown in Figure 4 by a smaller reduction in average net incident wave power density, where the net incident wave power density is resolved to a propagation direction of 275. This angle has been found heuristically to maximise the average net incident wave power density and thus represents an appropriate alignment for a wave farm. Using this angle for resolving the wave energy resource the reduction in average net incident wave power density is

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approximately 22% for the deep and intermediate depth sites and 32% for the nearshore site. Finally, if the net incident wave power densities of the most energetic sea-states are limited to four times the average net incident wave power density as a measure of the exploitable wave energy resource then the reduction is approximately 18% for the deep and intermediate depth sites and 28% for the nearshore site. This further smaller reduction in the measure of wave energy resource between the offshore site and EMEC occurs because of the greater attenuation of the more energetic sea-states so that they make a smaller contribution to the wave energy resource at EMEC than offshore. It is worth noting that the average incident wave power density at the 30 metre deep site is larger in all cases than at the 50 metre deep site even though it is closer to the shoreline. This illustrates two related and important points. Firstly, at EMEC the change in the wave energy resource is not reduced significantly due to the relatively steep sea-bed slope, which means that the distance between the different EMEC sites are relatively small. Secondly, local hot-spots and cold spots, where the wave energy resource is increased or decreased due to the local bathymetry can result in a change on the wave energy resource that is larger than the change due to water depth.
Offshore N Deep water wave berth N Shallow water wave berth N

Figure 5: Wave roses for EMEC Further evidence of how the wave energy resource changes from offshore to the EMEC wave berths can be seen in Figure 5, where wave roses are drawn for the three sites in which the area of each petal is proportional to the annual average wave energy from each particular direction. This clearly illustrates the reduction in directional distribution of the incident wave climate from the offshore site to the deep water wave berth and a further reduction in the directional distribution for the nearshore wave berth. A final analysis of interest compares the instantaneous net incident wave power density at the deep water wave berth with that for the nearshore wave berth as shown in Figure 6. This shows that for the most commonly occurring sea-states the net incident wave power density at the nearshore wave berth is only 10% less than the net incident wave power density at the deep water wave berth. Then, as the incident wave power density increases the reduction increase, which is primarily due to an increase in energy loss due to wave breaking.

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500 Net wave power at 10 metre depth contour (kW) 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 P10 = 0.9 P50 - 0.0002 P2 50

50

100 150 200 250 300 350 400 Net wave power at 50 metre depth contour (kW)

450

500

Figure 6: Comparison of net incident wave power density for the deep water and nearshore wave berths

Discussion
The wave energy resource at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) has been analysed using the Mike21 Nearshore Spectral Wave model to investigate its characteristics. In particular the difference in the wave energy resource for the deep water wave berths and the nearshore wave berth is investigated. It is considered that the EMEC wave test site is a representative site for the deployment of wave energy converters along the west coast of Scotland and thus provides an illustrative example of the wave energy resource transformation. The analysis of the EMEC wave test site illustrates a number of general factors that are of interest. The first of these is the significance of sheltering due to land masses on the wave energy resource. For EMEC there is significant sheltering of the site by the Outer Hebrides and Scottish mainland, which reduces the wave energy resource by about 20% compared to more exposed sites on the western coast of Scotland. The analysis also illustrates that the local bathymetry can change the wave energy resource to create hot-spots and cold-spots where the difference in resource is of a similar or greater magnitude to the change in wave energy resource due to water depth. The analysis also shows that if a naive view of the wave energy resource is taken then an offshore wave energy site would appear to have twice the resource of a nearshore wave energy site, which is obtained if the wave energy resource is measured using the average gross incident wave power density. However, such a naive view does not account for the reduction in directional distribution of the nearshore resource, over-accounts for highly energetic sea-states, which are more common offshore, and does not account for the deployment of wave energy converters closer to the

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shoreline as at EMEC. Taking these factors into consideration then it is shown that the reduction in the wave power density between the deep water wave berths and the nearshore wave berth is generally approximately 10% for the most commonly occurring sea-states. This has significant consequences for the development of the wave energy industry because the large apparent difference in wave energy resource between deep water wave energy converters and nearshore wave energy converters does not exist at EMEC and, by inference, may not be significant for many other suitable locations for wave energy converters. It is inevitable that in some circumstances, for example when considering the total wave energy resource for a technology or coastline, that the measure of the wave energy resource is reduced to a single figure for any particular location. However, this study of the EMEC wave climate shows that care must be taken in defining the measure of the wave energy resource to avoid unintentional distortion of the resource. The average energy yield of a wave farm is likely to be of most interest to developers and so the measure of wave energy resource should reflect this. The average exploitable incident wave power density is the most relevant of the measured discussed in this paper because it accounts for the effect of wave directional distribution and discounts highly energetic sea-states from which only a limited amount of energy can be extracted.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank RPS Group Plc and Aquamarine Power Ltd for providing data on the wave climate off of the western coast of the Orkney. The work described in this paper was produced as part of SuperGen Marine Energy Research Consortium II, which is funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Science Research Council.

References
DHI (2008). Mike21 Nearshore Spectral Wave Module - Scientific documentation, DHI. EMEC. (2009). "EMEC: European Marine Energy Centre." Retrieved 27 Feb 2009, from http://www.emec.org.uk/. Evans, D. V. (1976). "A Theory for Wave-power Absorption by Oscillating Bodies." Journal of Fluid Mechanics 77(1), 1-25. Folley, M. & Whittaker, T. J. T. (2009). "Analysis of the nearshore wave energy resource." Renewable Energy 34(7), 1709-1715. Taylor, J. R. M. & Motion, A. G. (2005). Estimating wave energy in scottish waters from hindcast data. 6th European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference. Glasgow, UK: 501-508.