An overview of medium- to long-term predictions of global wave energy resources

Chong Wei Zheng, Qing Wang and Chong Yin Li

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2017, vol. 79, issue C, 1492-1502

Abstract: Against a backdrop of increasing energy demand, the development of wave energy technology is a logical means of both meeting this demand and mitigating the environmental degradation associated with conventional power generation. Previous research has made considerable progress in the climatic characterization and short-term forecasting of wave energy. However, medium- to long-term predictions of wave energy resources, which are central to the development of future operating and trading strategies, remain scarce. This study provides an overview of long-term climatic trends and medium- to long-term predictions of wave energy, before discussing the focus of future predictions. Finally, a new method is proposed for predicting wave energy resources on a medium- to long-term basis that incorporates the swell index and propagation characteristics of swell energy. This model was developed with the aim of improving the precision of wave energy predictions, thereby providing a reference for the effective utilization of wave resources. The results of this study demonstrate that long-term climatic trend analysis should include not only variations in wave power density (WPD), but also long-term variability in wave energy stability, energy level occurrence, and variability in the occurrence of effective significant wave height (SWH). The medium- to long-term prediction of wave energy should also synthetically consider the above factors. We conclude that monitoring the propagation of swell energy and calculating the swell index constitutes a robust theoretical basis for predicting the WPD of mixed wave.

Keywords: Wave energy; Climatic long-term trend; Medium- to long-term prediction; Wave power density; Wave energy stability; Energy level occurrence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032117307347
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:79:y:2017:i:c:p:1492-1502

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2017.05.109

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().