The EOLO research group of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has confirmed the increase in the power flow of the waves in the Bay of Biscay from 1900 onwards.
The EOLO research group of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has confirmed the increase in the power flow of the waves in the Bay of Biscay from 1900 onwards. It has identified ten types of sea state and has used a statistical model to link them to the output of the Mutriku wave farm. So it has been possible to calculate the amount of electrical power that could have been produced during the 1979-2019 period if these facilities had been operational.
The Mutriku wave power plant was built on the Mutriku breakwater, a site with great wave energy potential, and has been in operation since 2011. With 14 oscillating water columns to transform wave energy, it is the only wave farm in the world that supplies electricity to the grid on a continuous basis. In general, technologies that harness the power of the waves to produce electricity are in their infancy, and this is precisely what is being explored by the UPV/EHU’s Research Group EOLO, which focusses on Meteorology, Climate and Environment, among many other aspects.
Gabriel Ibarra, researcher in the group and lecturer in the UPV/EHU's Department of Energy Engineering, explained that "one thing is the energy the waves produce, the hydraulic energy they have, and another thing is the amount of electrical power obtained from them". This is what they have been working on over the last few years. "After identifying some of the key aspects of the operation of the Mutriku facilities a few years ago, we have now developed a methodology that allows us to find out the impact of climate change on the output at Mutriku. We have used it to reconstruct the daily electrical power that would have been generated if the Mutriku wave farm had been operational during the entire 1979-2019 period, and this will help us to predict what might happen in the future," explained Ibarra.
Read more at University of the Basque Country
Image: Gabriel Ibarra and an image of the dock that houses the Mutriku facilities for transforming wave energy into electrical power (Credit: Mitxi. UPV/EHU)
