Analysis of interaction of point absorbers' arrays for seawave electrical energy generation in italian seas

This work focuses on interactions between wave energy converters (WEC) in array configuration. The arrays are simulated in the time domain by a coupled hydrodynamic-electromagnetic model. The hydrodynamic parameters of the model are estimated by boundary element code while the electrical ones are obtained by finite element code. Wave parks of two and four devices are simulated considering different layouts. The ultimate goal of the work is to identify the optimal array design at four Italian locations. The results show that: (i) • it is possible to find an array configuration which performs better than four isolated devices, at each study sites, (ii) the highest energy production is obtained with the linear layout at all the locations, (ii) optimum WEC distance varies between ten and twenty diameters, depending on the deployment site and (iv) the difference in energy production between the best and worst array configuration (i.e. over all the possible combinations of geometrical layout, spatial orientation and WEC distance) ranges from 3% to 7%, depending on the deployment site..