According to the "Study on the potential of wave energy in Spain" prepared by the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics at the University of Cantabria and commissioned by the Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE), Galicia, "with an average potential of between 40 and 45 kilowatts per metre (kW / m) in undefined water depths, is the Spanish coastal area that presents the highest potential for the use of wave energy". The objective of the report is "to form part of the new 2011-2020 National Action Plan for Renewable Energy (Paner), in which this technology will play for the first time its own role in achieving the global targets set". The study is one of sixteen commissioned by the IDAE "to support the new plan”.
According to the director of the Institute of Environmental Hydraulics at the University of Cantabria, Iñigo Losada, who also participated in the launch of the wave atlas, "the aim of the study has not only been to identify how much energy waves carry off the Spanish coast, but also to provide information on the best locations to harvest this energy, the challenges faced by those installing devices, and the difficulties that need to be overcome by those charged with operating and maintaining devices over their lengthy useful lives (20 to 30 years) and when these facilities are dismantled.
The results of the study are presented in the form of “maps of the entire coastline, mesh calculation maps, and summary sheets of more than 1,000 points along the coast, at twenty, fifty and a hundred metres depth, and at indefinite depths". The study, which takes into account variations over time at different scales – monthly, seasonal and annual – has been described by IDAE as "the first of this magnitude performed in our country" and has already been posted on the Institute’s website (www.idae.es) "to enable easy access for all stakeholders to the results obtained".
The Wave Atlas was presented at the beginning of December in the presence of IDEA’s director, Alfonso García Beltrán Echaniz, and the Rector of the University of Cantabria, Federico Gutiérrez-Solana Salcedo, and shows that after Galicia, the Cantabrian Sea is the next best area of the coast in terms of resource: about 30 kW/m "decreasing from west to east". The northern coastline of the Canary Islands (20 kW/m) is in third place. The southern coastline of this archipelago, together with the Spanish Mediterranean and the Gulf of Cadiz, meanwhile, present mean annual values of less than 10 kW/m. The document further notes that "there are strong seasonal patterns in average power, with a mean winter value of 75 kW/m (Galicia), 50 kW/m (the Bay of Biscay) and 35 kW/m (northern coastline of the Canary Islands).
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