Feasibility of Wave Energy Harvesting in the Ligurian Sea, Italy

Abstract

Clean energies are being incorporated into the energy mix in numerous countries. Through a spatial survey of maritime trade, restricted military maritime areas, marine planning, and the presence of fauna and flora along the Ligurian Sea, locations for possible investments in wave energy harvesting were identified in the Northern Thyrrenian Sea, along the Ligurian coast. Previous studies in this region have demonstrated, at a lower spatial resolution, the wave energy potential that can be captured and its variation over time. However, the optimization of wave energy exploitation under the criteria of the functionality and safety of converter devices has not yet been evaluated in the Ligurian Sea. The purpose of this study is to identify the optimal wave energy converter from an economic and technical perspective at several selected locations in the Ligurian Sea. This study involves the scaling of the employed power matrices to obtain the optimized capacity factors of wave energy converters.