Appraisal of the IEC technical specification for assessment of wave energy resources

This article describes and presents results from research focused on appraising the new technical specification (TS) for the assessment of wave energy resources developed by technical committee 114 of the International Electro-technical Commission (IEC-TC-114). The new IEC TS is appraised through an extensive pilot application to the waters off the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. A series of wave models are developed and used to simulate the wave conditions and estimate the wave energy resource over the study area. The accuracy of the various resource estimates derived from the model outputs is assessed through comparison with measurements from a directional wave buoy. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses are conducted to determine the main sources of error and uncertainty impacting the precision of resource assessments obtained following the IEC methodology. Preliminary results indicate that the IEC TS can be applied to the estimation of wave energy resources with a reasonable level of effort and accuracy.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye