The expected efficiency and coastal impact of a hybrid energy farm operating in the Portuguese nearshore

The objective of the present work is to provide a comprehensive picture concerning the expected efficiency and coastal impact that would result from the implementation of a hybrid wind-wave project in the northern part of the Portuguese nearshore. As regards the wind, the data considered are from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecast and covers the 20-year interval 1995-2014. For the wave conditions, data provided by in situ buoy measurements corresponding to the 15-year time interval (1994-2010) have been processed and analyzed. As a first step, the potential of the wind and wave resources was assessed in terms of their seasonal variations. This was further completed with results concerning the expected power output and the efficiency of some state of the art wind and wave converters. The second part of the proposed work is focused on an evaluation of the down-wave effect induced by a hybrid wind-wave farm. Following the results of the present work, it can be noticed that the wave farm can assure a beneficial sheltering effect to the wind farm fact that should lead to an increase of efficiency of the wind energy extraction. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.