Wave energy resource assessment in the Mediterranean Sea on the basis of a 35-year hindcast

A state-of-the-art, in terms of spatio-temporal resolution (about 10 km and on a hourly basis) and temporal span (35 years), wave hindcast is exploited to update existing assessments of wave energy potential in the Mediterranean Sea. The hindcast, covering the period 1979–2013, has been obtained using WavewatchIII with calibrated source-term parameters recently proposed by L. Mentaschi et al. (2015) [1]. The main advantage of such a calibration is that it takes into account the peculiarity of the Mediterranean basin with respect to other calibrations carried out in the oceans. The high resolution allowed to perform a detailed analysis of wave energy potential characteristics providing information on seasonal and longer term variability necessary for reliable and optimal design of wave energy conversion devices. As a result, the identification of areas where the mean wave power reaches values of the order of 10 kW/m clearly emerge. However, these regions are not necessarily optimal in relation to the efficiency of energy extraction, due to possible relevant time variation of the energy availability. The high temporal resolution allows to address issues related to the time variability of the available resource and thus to provide a complete set of statistical information to carry out optimal design of WEC (wave energy converter).