Wave energy and extreme value analysis in coastal zone in the central Mediterranean sea, oriented to the design of energy harvesters

The objective of this paper is to provide a holistic view on the best locations available for the installation of sea wave energy harvesters in the Central Mediterranean Sea, in terms of both wave energy and design condition. At this purpose, a high resolution wave energy atlas and a 10 year WAM dataset presented recently [1] for the Mediterranean Sea are utilized. The dataset is applied to identify some rich (energy-wise) areas along the Italian coasts. The wave data are analysed at certain locations, by obtaining the directional distribution (wave climate in deep water). Then, they are propagated to intermediate water for estimating the wave energy along the coast, by including the wave shoaling and refraction effect. Finally, the data in intermediate water (local wave climate) are investigated from the perspective of a wave energy device: the average annual wave power is analysed and the extreme waves are estimated to obtain the return value of extreme storms. The latter information is quite useful to obtain the design wave. The computations are performed via the numerical code MIKE 21, and the Extreme Value Analysis is pursued via the Equivalent Power Storm (EPS) model [2].