MetOcean Solutions has completed the wave energy assessment of a nearshore site on the west coast of Mexico on behalf of the Israeli wave energy developer Eco Wave Power.
Eco Wave Power commissioned the New Zealand-based consultancy MetOcean Solutions in July 2016 to provide wave statistics for a nearshore site in Cuyutlan, Manzanillo, as it is interested to develop a wave power plant in the area.
Guillermo Sherwell , Project Manager for Eco Wave Power, said: “Our company required wave statistics to assess whether it was feasible to install a wave power plant at the location.
“An overview of the wave conditions is essential for the planning of offshore installations – it allows us to assess operability and identify potential hazards. The data also helps document important environmental conditions that may require further attention.”
In consultation with Eco Wave Power, MetOcean’s team picked three nearshore sites representative of the proposed location of the wave power plant in water depths of 4, 6 and 8 meters.
Annual, seasonal and monthly wave analyses were carried out for these sites to extract ambient and extreme wave statistics to assess the design, workability and efficiency of the proposed wave power plant, MetOcean Solutions informed.
Séverin Thiébaut , from MetOcean Solutions who was in charge of the project, said: “We set up a multi-nest wave hindcast model to replicate the wave climate at the nearshore site. We modeled the 2005-2014 period so that we could reproduce the ambient wave climate and reliably estimate the most extreme wave conditions that can occur in a 30-year period.”
Eco Wave Power’s wave energy technology has been under development since 2011.
The company has an operational power plant in Jaffa port in Israel for 3 years, and another one launched last year in Gibraltar, featuring multiple devices in an array with a total capacity of 100kW.
Furthermore, Eco Wave Power holds a projects pipeline of 130MW worldwide, and has established 5 subsidiaries in Gibraltar, China, Mexico, India and Chile.