Review of the optimal locations of coastal sea area for operating wave energy converter in Korea

Abstract

To improve the efficiency of wave energy converters during operation, their shape and geometrical form should be optimized considering the environment of the sea area where they will be installed. However, prior studies on the operation and efficiency im-provement of domestic ocean wave generators have been conducted based only on a single or specific sea area. For this reason, several sea areas that can represent the West Sea, South Sea, and East Sea of Korea were selected from ocean data buoys installed in the domestic sea. By applying the Rayleigh distribution using the observed time series data, the probability distributions of the maximum wave height, significance wave height, average wave height, and peak wave period for each sea area were analyzed. Finally, based on the Rayleigh distribution results for the wave heights of each sea area, the optimal sea areas on the domestic coast for operating wave energy converters were selected.