Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Impacts On The Electrical System Economics From Critical Design Factors Of Wave Energy Converters And Arrays, Fergus Sharkey, Michael Conlon, Kevin Gaughan

Conference papers

It is expected that ultimately, like offshore wind farms, electrical systems will make up to a quarter of the overall Capex of wave farms. This is a significant element of cost and consideration must be taken in the design of both individual wave energy converters (WECs) and arrays of WECs to ensure that these costs can be minimised. In a worst case scenario design decisions could increase the cost of the electrical system by several orders and ultimately make the technology uncompetitive.

This paper outlines the impacts on the cost of the electrical system arising from design factors of WECs …