Researchers from the Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy (MaREI) and NUI Galway have produced a paper that provides a detailed assessment of the wave energy resource at the Atlantic Marine Energy Test Site (AMETS), located west of Belmullet, Ireland.
The research presents an assessment of the wave resource at AMETS based on 12-years of modelled data, from January 2004 to December 2015.
Wave characteristic assessments of wave energy test sites provide a greater understanding of prevailing wave conditions and are therefore extremely important to both wave energy test site operators and clients as they can inform wave energy converter design, optimization, deployment, operation and maintenance.
The primary aim of the research was to provide an assessment of annual and seasonal wave characteristics and resource variability at the two deployment berths which comprise the site.
According to the report, the resource shows strong seasonal and annual variations and the winter mean power levels were found to be strongly correlated with the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), with the 12-year annual mean power for Berth A being 68 kW/m, and 57 kW/m at Berth B.
AMETS site is being developed by Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) to facilitate testing of full scale wave energy converters in an open ocean environment.
SEAI owns a foreshore lease for two berths for a period of 35 years which was granted in 2015.
It is anticipated that a maximum power of 10MW will be generated at the site, which is the equivalent of providing power to 10,000 homes, according to SEAI.