Performance of an oscillating water column wave energy converter integrated with three types of harbor protection structures

Abstract

Oscillating water column (OWC) wave energy converters can be integrated in harbor protection structures, such as vertical, rubble mound and piled breakwaters. The interaction between the incident wave and the structure, in which the OWC device is integrated, is significantly different, since the structure of the vertical breakwater is impermeable, while that of the rubble mound breakwater is porous. The performance of the OWC device for the three configurations is analyzed for a range of wave periods from 6 to 12 s and a wave height of 1 m. The OWC device integrated into the vertical breakwater shows the best performance (maximum mean pneumatic power of 70 kW), and the mean pneumatic power is globally 3 % higher than that of the OWC device integrated into the rubble mound breakwater (maximum mean pneumatic power of 67.4 kW). The performance of the OWC device integrated into the piled breakwater shows a similar trend to the OWC device integrated into the vertical breakwater for wave periods lower than 9 s, but it has a significant loss of performance for higher wave periods.