Techno-Economic Assessment & Optimisation of Wave Energy Convetrers (TEOWEC)

Project Description

The techno-economic assessment and optimisation project aims to improve the techniques used to assess and improve the economic performance of Wave Energy Converter technologies.

The motivation is to help developers discover the best device/wavefarm combination in the context of a resource/market combination. The research question to be addressed may be expressed as:

What combination of device concept, hull geometry, component equipment, device control and wavefarm parameters gives the best return on investment in the context of a particular location with a particular wave resource and market conditions?

The approach used is to apply optimisation techniques to an objective function formed from economic value measures (e.g. PI, IRR, NPV, CoE). The economic model used to calculate the objective function is based on a large scale (100+WM) wavefarm project. The value of the objective function is calculated using discounted cash flow techniques and both the device and wavefarm parameters are manipulated to improve its value.

Throughout these calculations there is a focus on capturing real world engineering considerations in device concept, hydrodynamic performance, sea-keeping, bearing arrangements, mooring, PTO, control, CAPEX & OPEX drivers, marine operations etc…

In addition there is an emphasis on implementing general purpose analysis techniques that may be applied to a wide range of wave energy technologies.

Expected outcomes of the project are:

• Ability to provide high quality estimate of financial performance of a large wavefarm selected WEC designs.
• Ability to undertake sensitivity analysis of the coupled techno-economic system; The sensitivity analysis facilitates the identification of the most promising avenues for achieving performance improvements and so helps with prioritisation of development efforts
• Optimisation: Within limits of any given WEC concept, an optimised design for improved financial performance.
• Assessment: Insightful assessments that inform extensions/modifications to a WEC concept with the objective of achieving step change improvements in economic performance.

The TEOWEC project has now been completed. The outputs of the TEOWEC project have been licensed to a new spin-out company Wave Venture Ltd.

Wave Venture provide specialist wave energy software and consultancy services based on the techno-economic analysis capabilities developed in the TEOWEC project.