Performance analysis of two generations of heaving point absorber WECs in farms of hexagon-shaped array layouts

Abstract

Numerical analyses are presented for two generations of a floating heaving point absorber wave energy converter (WEC) installed with different farm array layouts. The wave farm configurations are based on WECs developed by Waves4Power. The numerical models are developed in the DNV software package, Sesam. Parametric studies of the isolated WEC configurations and farm array layouts are conducted under typical environmental conditions and various incident wave directions to understand the hydrodynamic power performance and the levelised cost of energy (LCoE). Hexagonal layouts are proposed for deploying the WEC units and compared with a 10-unit layout termed StarBuoy, which has been reported in previous work. The results of the present study confirm that the interactions between arrayed units in a farm can have either positive or negative effects on the LCoE, which is dependent on the array layout and environmental conditions. The hexagonal array layouts lead to lower LCoE owing to constructive interaction effects.