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Publications
Rusu, E. and Guedes Soares, C. , "Assessment of the Wave Energy in Two Enclosed Seas", Maritime Engineering and Technology, Guedes Soares, C. Garbatov Y. Sutulo S. & Santos T. A. (Eds.), Taylor & Francis Group, London, UK, pp. 613-621
The objective of the present work is to evaluate the wave energy resources in two enclosed seas. These are the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. As the practice show, in an environment very rich in wave energy, as for example the west Iberian nearshore, strong storm conditions that occur periodically make extremely difficult the maintenance of the devices used to extract the wave energy. Very often, in such environments the damages produced by such events are not covered by the benefits given by the wave farms.
From this point of view the two target areas considered in this work present some interesting features. Although they have considerably less wave energy potential than the west Iberian nearshore, they present also the advantage of considerably weaker storm events that may assure longer life to the wave farms operating in such environment.
Moreover, another issue is related with the constancy of the waves in some parts of the two seas under analysis and this characteristic is also valid for the wind fields.
A first perspective of the wave and wind climate in these areas is given by medium term analysis of some recent satellite data. This allowed the identification of the most energetic sectors. As a further step, wave prediction systems based on the SWAN spectral phase averaged model were implemented and validated in the two seas. Comparisons carried out against remotely sensed data show that these wave prediction systems generally provides accurate results in terms of significant wave heights. Using the numerical wave model, the spatial distribution of the wave energy was analyzed for some case studies that correspond to the most relevant wave patterns.
The present work gives some insight about the wave conditions, and the wave energy potential, in the basins of the Black and Caspian Seas. Moreover, in the perspective of the development of the wave energy devices for small amplitude waves that is expected to be very dynamic in the near future bringing also some technological breakthroughs, and most probable coupled in mixed farms wind-waves, the problem of extracting this type of renewable energy in the Black and Caspian Seas might become of actuality.
Finally the present work aims also to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a wave prediction system based on spectral phase averaged numerical models to assess the wave conditions, and the wave energy, in enclosed basins.
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