Wave Energy Potential of the Coast of El Hierro Island for the Exploitation of a Wave Energy Converter (WEC)

In this paper, we studied the territorial, technical, and economic conditions for the potential installation of a wave energy converter plant (WEC) connected to the small power grid of the island of El Hierro (Canary Islands). To define the best location, the non-directional gross energy potential at the selected points was computed from long series of data of deep-water waves, propagated up to the coast using coefficients of refraction and shoaling calculated for the bathymetry of the island. The study concludes that the best location is the northeastern coast of the island “Llanos Blancos”, where the gross energy potential for the non-directional oscillating water column (OWC) plant used as a reference is 265.40 MWh/m per year. The methodology proposed in the work uses light computing means and affordable data series and is easily extrapolated by industry practitioners to other regions, particularly oceanic insular regions subject to waves potentially from any direction.