Integration of Wave Energy into Distributed Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems: Power and Cost Modelling Requirements

Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRES) typically incorporate technologies, such as wind turbines or solar PV where there exists a well-established understanding of their efficiency in converting environmental resources to electricity, the power-offtake efficiency, upfront capital costs and their long-term operating and maintenance costs. Accordingly, pre-commercial technologies like wave power do not tend to be incorporated into distributed HRES models or are considered widely as a potential contributor to a future net-zero system, due to the lack of available data on their power and cost characteristics. In this paper an attempt has been made to develop a methodology for cost and power modelling of a wave energy device, utilising available data for the Pelamis P2 wave energy converter (WEC) as a test case. It is to date the most commercially successful WEC and as such has a greater availability of literature in relation to cost and power characteristics. By designing a power and cost modelling methodology independent from the wave behaviour in a given geography the procedure presented in this paper could be readily adapted and applied to future wave energy devices, installed in any location, where there is sufficient resource, cost and power data available to enable their integration into a HRES model. This in turn could allow for a clearer understanding of how the particular characteristics of wave energy could support the transition to a decarbonized power sector.