Economic Feasibility of Wave Energy Farms in Portugal

Laura Castro-Santos, Dina Silva, A. Rute Bento, Nadia Salvação and C. Guedes Soares
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Laura Castro-Santos: Departamento de Enxeñaría Naval e Industrial, Universidade da Coruña, Escola Politécnica Superior, Esteiro, 15471 Ferrol, Spain
Dina Silva: Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
A. Rute Bento: Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
Nadia Salvação: Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal
C. Guedes Soares: Centre for Marine Technology and Ocean Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal

Energies, 2018, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-16

Abstract: This paper develops a methodology to determine the economic feasibility of implementing offshore wave energy farms on the Portuguese continental coast. This methodology follows several phases: the geographic phase, the energy phase, the economic phase, and the restrictions phase. First, in the geographic phase, the height and the period of the waves, the bathymetry, the distance from the farm to the shore, from farm to shipyard, and from farm to port, are calculated. In the energy phase the energy produced by each wave energy converter is determined, and in the economic phase, the parameters calculated in the previous phases are used as input to find the economic parameters. Finally, in the restrictions phase, a limitation by the bathymetry will be added to the economic maps, whose value will be different depending on the floating offshore wave energy converter (WEC). In this study, three wave energy converters have been considered, Pelamis, AquaBuOY, and Wave Dragon, and several scenarios for electric tariffs have been taken into account. The results obtained indicate what the best WEC is for this study in terms of its levelized cost of energy (LCOE), internal rate of return (IRR), and net present value (NPV), and where the best area is to install wave energy farms.

Keywords: feasibility study; floating offshore wave farm; WEC; IRR; LCOE; ocean energy; marine energy (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: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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