Projected Trends in Wave Energy Potentials along the European Coasts and Implications for Wave Energy Exploitation (1976–2100)

In the context of the efforts toward the technological development of wave energy converters, reliable estimations of the annual energy production that can be attained with a given device are fundamental for a sound evaluation of the related levelized cost of energy, which is crucial in the investment decision-making process. The lack of reliability in estimates of devices productivity can, in turn, be exacerbated by uncertainty in the available wave energy resource. The Climate Data Store of the Copernicus Climate Change Service delivers hindcast data and projections of the wave climate along the 20 m bathymetric contours of the whole European coastline, covering the periods 1976–2017 and 2040–2100. This work addresses the presence of long-term trends in wave power and the effect of these trends on wave energy exploitability and on the energy production of different wave energy converters to be installed along the Mediterranean, North African, and European Atlantic coastlines. The results show that the monthly variation in the wave energy resource will generally increase for most of the considered areas, up to double the current values in some locations. Wave energy converters will have to face more severe wave conditions, with relevant implications in terms of survivability. At the same time, the future annual energy production of the analyzed devices is expected to increase in many areas in the Mediterranean Basin (particularly in the nearest future scenario), as well as in the Baltic Sea and along the coasts of the UK and France and the north coasts of Spain.