Evaluation of spatio-temporal variability of ocean wave power resource around Sri Lanka

Harshinie Karunarathna, Pravin Maduwantha, Bahareh Kamranzad, Harsha Rathnasooriya and Kasun de Silva

Energy, 2020, vol. 200, issue C

Abstract: The paper presents a detailed analysis of the spatio-temporal variability of wave power resource around Sri Lanka, using computationally simulated 25 years of wave data that represents the prevailing ocean climate in the region. The computational wave model was validated against a measured wave dataset collected over a 44-month period at 70 m water depth off the coast of the south-west of Sri Lanka and ERA-Interim Reanalysis wave data and, good agreement found. The analysis reveals that the ocean around Sri Lanka from the south-west to south-east have a substantial wave power resource. The available offshore wave power resource remains between 10 and 20 kW/s throughout the year although it is significantly modulated by the south-west monsoon which falls between May and September thus increasing the power up to around 30 kW/m. The inter-annual to decadal scale variability of wave power resource remains small. Wave power reduces when waves travel from the margin of the narrow continental shelf around Sri Lanka to shallow water areas closer to the shoreline. A significant longshore variability of wave power is also observed where the south-west coast of Sri Lanka has the highest available power under the prevailing ocean climate.

Keywords: Wave power; Wave simulations; Sri Lanka; Indian Ocean; South-west tropical monsoon (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220306101
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:energy:v:200:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220306101

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117503

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

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