Impact of Climate Change on Wave Energy Resource in the Mediterranean Coast of Morocco

Joan Pau Sierra, Ricard Castrillo, Marc Mestres, César Mösso, Piero Lionello and Luigi Marzo
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Joan Pau Sierra: Laboratori d’Enginyeria Marítima, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech, Jordi Girona 1–3, Mòdul D1, Campus Nord, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Ricard Castrillo: Laboratori d’Enginyeria Marítima, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech, Jordi Girona 1–3, Mòdul D1, Campus Nord, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Marc Mestres: Laboratori d’Enginyeria Marítima, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech, Jordi Girona 1–3, Mòdul D1, Campus Nord, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
César Mösso: Laboratori d’Enginyeria Marítima, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya BarcelonaTech, Jordi Girona 1–3, Mòdul D1, Campus Nord, 08034 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Piero Lionello: Dipartimento Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche e Ambientali (DiSTeBA), University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Luigi Marzo: Dipartimento Scienze e Tecnologie Biologiche e Ambientali (DiSTeBA), University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-19

Abstract: The increasing demand for energy and the impacts generated by CO 2 emissions make it necessary to harness all possible renewable sources of energy, like wave power. Nevertheless, climate change may generate significant variations in the amount of wave energy available in a certain area. The aim of this paper is to study potential changes in the wave energy resource in the Mediterranean coast of Morocco due to climate change. To do this, wave datasets obtained by four institutes during the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment in the Mediterranean Region (Med-CORDEX) project are used. The future conditions correspond to the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios from the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The results show that projected future wave power is very similar to that of the present considering the whole area, although at some specific points there are slight changes that are more evident for the RCP8.5 scenario. Another remarkable result of this study is the significant increase of the temporal variability of wave power in future scenarios, in particular for RCP8.5. This will be detrimental for the deployment of wave energy converters in this area since their energy output will be more unevenly distributed over time, thus decreasing their efficiency.

Keywords: wave energy; renewable energy; climate change; numerical modeling; Mediterranean coast (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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