PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT OF THE WAVE-ENERGY RESOURCE USING OBSERVED WAVE AND WIND DATA

The first step in determining the feasibility of a wave-energy convers ion device is to assess the available wave energy in a given area. We show the estimation of wave energy from observational wave and wind da ta. A total of five different methods of wave-energy estimation are pr esented. One of these methods, which is introduced for the first time, is the estimation of wave energy from observational wind data using t he Weibull distribution. This new method of wave-energy assessment is applied to an area near the Hawaiian Islands and compared with other a vailable results. The comparisons show that the theory based on observ ational wind data produces results that are in overall agreement with previous calculations based on the measured spectral-density of waves, as well as on observational wave- and wind-data.