Estimation of the offshore wave energy potential of the Mediterranean Sea and propagation toward a nearshore area

In order to assess the feasibility of constructing an energy production plant based on WECs, a proper characterization of the local wave climate as well as the estimation of the available wave energy potentials must be effected. In this work, a set of analyses concerning the wave energy potential of the Mediterranean Sea has been carried out to obtain distribution maps in the Mediterranean Sea and the power matrixes of selected sites. The analysis is based on wave data arising from numerical models for wave generation coupled with atmospheric models. This numerical model wave data have been obtained by IFREMER that has developed a pre-operational system, called PREVIMER. Although the offshore wave energy potential is known from the previous analysis, the processes affecting waves as they propagate towards the nearshore can modify the wave energy potential, leading to reductions or, sometime, local enhancements due to focusing mechanisms. To quantify these processes, and thus select the most energetic locations, a numerical simulation was used to propagate the power matrixes from deepwater into the nearshore area of the selected test sites. The numerical simulations were carried out by the MIKE21-Spectral Wave.