Review of Innovative Harbor Breakwaters for Wave-Energy Conversion

In a time span of over 3,000 years, the function of harbor breakwaters has remained the same (i.e., the energy dissipation), with differences depending on the general breakwater configurations: rubble mound breakwaters or caisson breakwaters. The recent demands of the sea level rise and the intensification of extreme events related to climate change issues are requiring new replacement schemes and, in most cases, will not be easy to achieve with a simple modification in seawall height. Moreover, the international community recognizes the importance of investing in reliable and reasonable energy sources, which are alternative to the traditional ones. In this context, the combination wave energy converters-harbor breakwaters represent the coastal engineering response to these issues, creating a smart alternative and a path of innovation. This paper presents a review of innovative harbor breakwaters for wave-energy conversion, developing a coconstructed description of the criticality and benefits of such innovation.