Description
There is a rising need to produce electricity from renewable energy sources. Wave and offshore wind energy are two such sources that can greatly contribute to the energy portfolio of the United States. Offshore wave and wind energy conversion is especially advantageous for costal states with high electricity charges such as California. This study inspects the combined wave and wind energy potential off of the California coast for three varying scenarios in order to provide time dependent energy resource calculations and simulations. This is accomplished by dividing the California coast into 10 cells and using a wave modeling software named SWAN which necessitates the user to input wave boundary condition, wind boundary conditions and bathymetric data. Once ran, each of the 10 cells had a representative integrated energy density for every month of all three years culminating in a location which would be ideal for an integrated platform. An integrated platform design with a rated capacity of 584 kW was proposed. Such a platform would produce 4,524,339 kWh/yr and have a capital cost of $5,261,481.
