Cascadia Coast Research led a project, in partnership with University of Victoria and University of Edinburgh, that produced a publicly available, wave power production data set aimed to address global knowledge gaps in wave energy production uncertainties.

The project involved:

• compiling and preparing 10 years of wave resource data at 3 hr intervals for 4 global locations: Canada Pacific/Atlantic, UK Atlantic, and UK North Sea
• developing and verifying two wave energy converter (WEC) simulation models: a two body point absorber and an oscillating wave surge converter
• running simulations for both WECs every three hours for 10 years at each location
• analyzing the data results

The targeted knowledge gaps:

• necessary duration of WEC deployments to ensure a robust estimate of Mean Annual Energy Production (MAEP)
• methods for selecting the appropriate parameters and dimensionality of the performance matrix
• uncertainties in calculations of WEC production at prospective locations
• applicability of the performance matrix methods to different operating concepts

As a part of the project funding from Marine Renewables Canada and the Canadian Marine Renewable Energy Standards committee, the results are to inform the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) – Technical Committee 114 project teams generating standardized methods for WEC power performance and performance uncertainty evaluation (IEC62600-100, -102). Cascadia Coast Research currently provides leadership on these efforts.