Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Perspectives for harnessing the energetic persistent high swells

reaching the coast of Chile
Ottavio Mattia Mazzaretto a, *, Felipe Lucero b, Giovanni Besio a, Rodrigo Cienfuegos b, c, d
a
DICCA, University of Genoa, Via Montallegro 1, 16145, Genova, Italy
b
MERIC - Marine Energy Research & Innovation Center, Santiago, Chile
c
Departamento de Ingeniería Hidra
ulica y Ambiental, Pontificia Universidad Cato

lica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
d
n para la Gestio
Centro de Investigacio
n Integrada del Riesgo de Desastres, ANID/FONDAP/1511007, Santiago, Chile

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The wave climate along the Pacific Chilean coast and its possible exploitation for marine energy gen-
Received 11 February 2019 eration between latitudes 33.00
S and 40.50
S are evaluated. A database of hindcast wave spectra in
Received in revised form coastal waters between 1989 and 2013 is used to perform the analysis at four different depths: 15m, 20m,
15 April 2020
50m, and 100m. Monthly wave power and mean wave direction statistics between deep and shallower
Accepted 6 May 2020
Available online 7 June 2020
water (20m) are analyzed. Furthermore, the variability of wave statistics is compared for the four
different shallow-to-intermediate water depths and latitudes. The performance of five wave energy
devices is assessed under their best operating conditions in terms of water depth: SeaPower, OEBuoy,
Keywords:
Wave energy converters
Wavestar, CETO, and Seabased. Median Produced Electrical Power, Capacity Factor and Capture Width
Chile Ratio are computed for the 24 years of the database. These devices are divided in two categories, the
Wave energy assessment and exploitation WECs with higher rated power (1200kW) and the lower rated power devices ( < 1200kW). These de-
WEC performance vices are compared considering an average performance along the coast during the whole period. Among
the formers OEBuoy stood out for Cf and CWR (on average: PE :318.02 kW, Cf:12.7% and CWR:19.96%),
while among the last group CETO 50m highlighted for PE and CWR (on average: PE :15.39 kW, Cf:6.70%
and CWR:7.74%).
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction production of energy from renewable sources, up to 43%, where

Global energy demand rocketed in recent decades, and it is
expected to increase about 48% between 2012 and 2040 [1]. Indeed,
the global electric consumption has shown a mean annual growth
rate of 4.38% between 2001 and 2011. In 2001 it reached 1220
(MToe1) and in 2011, 1754 (MToe) [2]. Moreover, the increasing
evidence of climate change and supply security concerns have
urged governments to foster the development of the renewable
energy sector.
Many countries are facing this challenge and also has done Chile
by issuing the Law 20.698 (2013): it is stated that the 20% of the
national energy generation should be based on Non-Conventional
Renewable Energy (NCRE) by 2025 [3,4]. Chile has already a high
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: omazza@hotmail.it (O.M. Mazzaretto), felipe.lucero@meric.cl
(F. Lucero), giovanni.besio@unige.it (G. Besio), racienfu@ing.puc.cl (R. Cienfuegos).
1
MToe:Tonne of oil equivalent, 1 MToe ¼ 11 630 kWh
traditional hydroelectricity production supplies 31%, and only 12%
comes from NCRE as biomass, solar, and wind [5e8].
Renewable energies have experienced a remarkable increase
since the 2000s, specially for wind and solar exploitations [1].
Among renewable energy sources, wave power appears as a
promising alternative [9], thank to its density (2e3 kW=m2 ), which
is higher than wind (0.4e0.6 kW=m2 ) and solar (0.1e0.2 kW=m2 )
[10]. Furthermore, the world wave energy resource is quoted to be
“1e10 TW” [11e15], whereby entire continents could meet their
energy demand only with wave energy as [12] shows.
Even if the efforts to develop wave energy converter technolo-
gies started by the end of the XVIIIth Century, it was not until the
1970s that systematic Research and Development (R & D) programs
fostered substantive advancements [9,15]; nonetheless, the tech-
nology has not yet converged to define the best device in terms of
an industrial production and cost-efficiency. The wave energy
resource along the 4000 km of the Chilean Pacific coast, can reach
high values  100 kW=m [12,16,17]. This condition together with
the existence of tidal streams with high power potential in the

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2020.05.031
0960-1481/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505
southern part of Chile [18], have boosted the R & D efforts for
harnessing marine energy in Chile [3,4,7,17,19e22].
The present work has three major goals: the first one consists in
characterizing the wave climate along the central-south part of the
Chilean coast to analyze how the wave climate is modified as it
propagates from open waters towards the shore. The second goal is
to assess wave statistics in shallow-to-intermediate waters where
detailed bathymetric data is available, at water depths of 100 m,
50 m, 20 m, and 15 m. Using this information, we then provide for
the first time, realistic estimates of wave power extraction from five
Wave Energy Converter (WECs) technologies (CETO, OEBuoy, Sea-
based, SeaPower, and Wavestar) at the studied locations. Energy
production for the WECs is assessed taking into account the rec-
ommendations and performance levels declared by the developers.
The analysis provides operational statistics derived from time se-
ries of energy production. Furthermore, in order to develop a
comparative analysis, the devices are divided according to their
rated power ( 1200 kW and < 1200 kW). Extracted Power, Ca-
pacity Factors, and Capture Width Ratios are used to compare the
different performances and to rank WECs’ operation along Chilean
coastal waters. Finally, we compare these results with similar
analysis performed in other parts of the world [17], to discuss about
the potentialities of wave energy production in Chile. During this
study it was decided to use the median instead of the mean due to
the positive asymmetry of the wave energy. In this type of asym-
metry the most appropriate parameter to represent the central
tendency of the distribution of the data is not the mean but it is the
median, since the latter reflects better the existence of a bias.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area and location of wave hindcast nodes
The study area is located in the central-south coast of Chile and
it is enclosed between latitudes 33
and 42
(Fig. 1). This area is
selected because of its strategic importance since 76% of the pop-
ulation of Chile lives there, and it concentrates important industrial
and economic activities [23].
Typically, wave resource assessment studies are intended to
provide average wave conditions, energy distribution, annual and
monthly variability, and statistic data on the occurrence of extreme
waves. However, this information should be integrated with the
device characteristics to address wave energy extraction projects.
For example, locations with lower energy content could be more
productive than others with higher energy potential owing to ef-
ficiency factors since the produced power and the operational time
of each WEC depend jointly on the distribution of wave height and
period [24e26].
The locations of deep water hindcast nodes, and the locations of
the coastal nodes where wave energy is numerically propagated are
shown in Fig. 1; the nodes denoted by the letter F, are those of the
database of FUGRO Oceanor AS, whereas the nodes denoted with
the letter N, represent the locations where the waves are propa-
gated onshore using the numerical wave model SWAN [27]. We
thus produce shallow-to-intermediate wave climates at four
different limited depths to span the range of operational conditions
of the studied WECs. Wave propagation is conducted to shallow-to-
intermediate water depths of 15 m, 20 m, 50 m, and 100 m, but only
the 20 m locations (N nodes) are shown in Fig. 1 (right panel) and in
Table 1.
2.2. Selected wave energy converters
In this work five wave energy converters are considered: CETO,
OE Buoy, Seabased, SeaPower, and Wavestar (Table 2). These
495
devices are selected according to the following criteria: 1. opera-
tional data have been made publicly available; 2. the devices are
under active development; 3. the devices have been tested under
real sea conditions.
Using the classification proposed by Bozzi et al. [24] and EMEC
based on the mechanical type of wave energy extraction, three of
the selected WECs correspond to point absorbers, one is a multiple
point absorber, and one is an attenuator (see Table 2) [9,24]. The
devices also differ for their Power Take Off systems (PTOs); the
PTOs of the selected devices are described in Table 2. Another
distinctive key of the different devices is the Power Matrix; this
allows to calculate the potential energy production as a function of
wave heights and wave periods occurring at a certain location.
Combining the Power Matrix with the local sea state conditions it is
possible to estimate the potential energy production of each WEC.
The maximum power that each device can produce by the best
combination of wave heights and wave periods is called Rated
Power (i.e the maximum value reported in the Power Matrix); for
the selected WECs the Rated Power varies from a minimum of 15
kW (Seabased) to a maximum of 3587 kW (SeaPower).
Owing to significant differences in the nominal Rated Power of
the selected WECs, the devices have been divided in two groups.
The first group includes devices with a Rated Power  1200 kW,
while the second one contains WECs with Rated Power < 1200 kW
(Table 3).
2.3. Wave data
The wave climate analysis is performed considering the near-
shore hindcast data published in Lucero et al. [3]. Lucero et al. [3]
present a preliminary wave energy resource assessment for the
study area, combining hindcast and measured data. The database
has been validated in both nearshore and offshore nodes, using
wave observations from ADCPs and buoys (Fig. 1 left image). The
offshore wave data is obtained from a FUGRO Oceanor AS reanalysis
using the WAM model [34]. The resulting hindcast consist of
directional wave spectra, intensity and direction of the wind, at
intervals of 3 hrs, divided in two periods of time (1989e1991;
1993e2013). These data are used as the offshore boundary condi-
tion for the coastal wave propagation model that is implemented
here to produce wave climates in shallow-to-intermediate water
nodes.
Wave propagation towards coastal points is carried out
employing the SWAN model v41.01AB [27]. After the calibration
process, consisting in comparing hindcast data with measured
wave climates at ADCPs and buoys, the optimal configuration for
model parameters is specified: active whitecapping is set with a
fixed value for the dissipation rate of 2.36e  5 while delta is set to
1; the bottom friction coefficient is set to 0.038 m2 s3 ; and triadic
wave-wave interactions is set with a proportionality coefficient of
0.8 (local wind data have not been included in the wave propaga-
tion process). Nearshore wave climates produced by the SWAN
model are obtained using a set of three nested grids discretized
uniformly in the alongshore and cross-shore directions, with sizes
of 500 m, 100 m, and 25 m, respectively. All hindcast data shown in
the present paper refer to the highest resolution grid (25 m).
In the present study, wave statistics for monthly variations,
median annual power and wave direction are generated to compare
the results from deep and shallower water wave climates (F and N
nodes in Fig. 1). Specific analysis of propagated sea states are con-
ducted for 100 m, 50 m, 20 m, and 15 m water depths, since the
selected WECs are expected to perform better over these ranges.
The shallower water nodes where the energy production is
analyzed are chosen near headlands to enhance the concentration
of wave energy by refraction. The described methodology allows a
496 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505

Fig. 1. Study area and location of deep and shallow water nodes, buoys, and ADCPs where measurements are available. F, B, A, and N denote: hindcast data, buoys, ADCPs, and
synthetic shallow water nodes, respectively. Left panel: location of deep water hindcast data and measuring devices. Right panel: location of synthetic nodes where shallow water
wave climates are generated (based on [3]).

Table 1
Selected site locations for wave hindcast analysis and their corresponding longitude (Lon.), latitude (Lat.), and water depths.

Location FUGRO Oceanor AS - Offshore SWAN - Nearshore

Lat.[
] Lon.[
] Depth [m] Lat.[
] Lon.[
] Depth [m]

F1 33.000 73.500 3570 N1 33.087 71.746 20

F2 34.500 73.500 5260 N2 34.412 72.055 20
F3 36.000 73.500 596 N3 35.588 72.657 20
F4 36.000 75.000 4300
F5 37.500 75.000 4550 N4 37.273 73.677 20
F6 39.000 75.000 4412 N5 38.643 73.511 20
F7 40.500 75.000 2985 N6 39.994 73.707 20

detailed characterization of the energy production of the selected
WECs under realistic sea state conditions in intermediate-to-
shallow waters along the Chilean coast.
3. Results
3.1. Comparison between deep and shallow-to-intermediate water
nodes
In Fig. 2 we present the monthly variability of the median wave
power in deep (FUGRO Oceanor AS data) and shallow-to-
intermediate water nodes (wave propagation using the SWAN
model to 20 m water depths).
In general terms, the wave power increases with the latitude
from North to South, but some overlaps among nodes exist.
Regarding deep water nodes, this trend can be seen specially during
spring and summer seasons (between September and March). For
shallow-to-intermediate water nodes, from N1 to N4, there is an
overlapping during the whole year, but N5 and N6 stay clearly
above the others, on the exception of the spring and summer
 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505 497

Table 2
Main features of the studied wave energy converters.

Picture Name PTO Classification Energy mode Depth [m] Rated Power Ref
[kW]

CETO Submerged buoy single tension mooring; Point absorber Heave; Surge; 20e50 260 Babarit et al.
Sway. [28]
Single acting hydraulic pump; [29]
Fluid pressure;
Hydraulic motor;
Electric generator.

OEbuoy Floating platform slack moored; Oscillating Water Surge; Sway. 50-100þ 2880 Babarit et al.
Column (OWC) [28]
Oscillating water column;
Self-rectifying air turbine;
Electric generator.

Seabased Floating buoy single tension mooring; Attenuator Surge; Sway; 40e100 15 Dahlsten [30]
Heave.
Linear generator; Rusu [26]
Self-rectifying air turbine.

SeaPowerb Two floating, slack moored, hinged rafts; Point absorber Pitch 50-100þ 3587 Sea Power Ltd
[31].
Mechanical direct drive;
Electric generator. Bozzi et al.
[24]

Wavestar Multiple row of heaving buoys connected to a Multiple Point Absorber Heave from 6-8a to 2709 Babarit et al.
fixed platform; 30-40 [28]
Mechanical direct drive; Hansen et al.
[32]
Electric generator. [33]

a
(Depend on fixed platform characteristics). Tests at Hanstholm were between 5 and 8m depth. With present technology water depth could reach to around 10e20 m.
b
The double acting hydraulic pump is developed for freshwater production or for storage in reservoir.

Table 3 move from deep to shallower water, wave directions change and
Classification of WECs by rated power. the directional spreading is narrowed. The refraction produces a
Rated Power ½kW Devices shift towards the west; this effect also exists in the other nodes (not
shown) and can be explained by the bathymetric configuration of
 1200 SeaPower
OE Buoy
the selected intermediate-to-shallow water nodes. In the case of N1
Wavestar the refraction shifts the principal wave direction form SW to WSW.
< 1200 CETO
Seabased
3.2. Wave power parameters in intermediate-to-shallow waters

seasons. Results also show that June is the most energetic month of
the year for all the considered latitudes and water depths.
Conversely, December appears to be the less energetic month
within the year.
An example of wave directional rose is reported in Fig. 3 where
results for the first node, F1 (deep water) and N1 (at 20 m depth),
near to Valparaíso, are shown. Due to the refraction, as the waves
The characterization of wave energy power in intermediate-to-
shallow waters is performed by defining several wave statistics for
the different nodes and water depths (summarized in Table 4). All
the parameters (except the Peak Period) are extracted directly from
the directional wave spectrum, which is obtained from the propa-
gation using the SWAN model. The peak period is estimated from
the energetic period using the relationship proposed in previous
works [21,35,36]:
498 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505

Fig. 2. Monthly variations of the median wave power. Upper panel: deep water nodes from FUGRO Oceanor AS. Lowe panel: shallow-intermediate water nodes propagated to 20m
water depths using the SWAN model.

Fig. 3. Wave Rose directions for the northernmost nodes near Valparaíso. Left panel: deep water wave conditions. Right panel: shallower water wave conditions at 20m.

 median wave power of the most energetic month, while PMmin is the
Tp ¼ Te 0:9 :
In addition, Seasonality Variability (SV) and Monthly Variability
(MV) indexes are calculated. These indexes describe the inter-
seasonal and inter-annual variability. Lower values of these pa-
rameters suggest a more appropriate location for the energy
extraction. They are defined as follows [3,21,37,38]:
PSmax  PSmin
SV ¼
Pyear
PMmax  PMmin
MV ¼
Pyear
where PSmax is the median wave power for the most energetic sea-
son, PSmin is the median wave power for the less energetic season,
and Pyear is the yearly median wave power. Similarly, PMmax is the
(1) median power of the less energetic month.
Results presented in Table 4 show that the significant wave
height does not change significantly for the different water depths,
but it slightly increases from North to South. Conversely, the peak
period and the energetic period show only slight variations with
latitudes and water depths. More significant changes are observed
for the median wave direction since this parameter is very sensitive
to local bathymetry. It is worth noting that at several locations,
wave energy power increases as the water depth decreases. This
(2)
trend is explained by the fact that the shallower water nodes are
placed near headlands to enhance wave energy focusing by
refraction.
(3) The parameters in Table 4 are essential to understand the
possible electricity production of the devices, however, as the Po-
wer Matrix of the WECs is a function of certain distribution of wave
heights and periods, it is essential to study the bi-variate distri-
bution of the latter. Fig. 4 illustrates the bi-variate distribution (for
 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505 499

Table 4
Wave power statistics in shallow-intermediate waters: median yearly significant wave height (Hs ), median yearly peak period (Tp ), median energetic period (calculated with
the approximated formula) (Te), median yearly wave direction (q), maximum significant wave height (Hmax ), median yearly wave power (P), maximum wave power (Pmax ),
Seasonality variability index (SV), Monthly variability index (MV).

Location Hs [m] Tp [s] Te [s] q [+] Hmax [m] P [kW=m] Pmax SV MV

SWAN 15 m
N1 2.32 12.3 11.1 239.2 6.64 28.79 354.5 0.15 0.27
N2 2.32 12.6 11.3 254.1 7.06 29.18 390.44 0.15 0.29
N3 2.19 12.6 11.3 249.6 8.17 26.31 497.48 0.19 0.36
N4 2.28 12.3 11.1 253.4 7.89 27.83 414.54 0.26 0.49
N5 2.41 12.2 10.9 246.3 7.8 30.78 494.68 0.3 0.49
N6 2.62 12.4 11.2 250.9 9.26 37.4 637.67 0.35 0.56
SWAN 20 m
N1 2.27 12.1 10.9 237.6 6.27 26.89 313.8 0.14 0.26
N2 2.26 12.3 11.1 251.6 6.67 27.31 341.22 0.14 0.27
N3 2.2 12.4 11.2 246.3 7.85 26.15 466.11 0.2 0.39
N4 2.23 12 10.8 250.8 7.72 25.91 376.09 0.25 0.48
N5 2.37 11.9 10.8 243.9 7.5 29.08 454.5 0.29 0.48
N6 2.54 12.1 10.9 255.5 8.61 34.39 528.85 0.36 0.55
SWAN 50 m
N1 2.26 11.6 10.5 233.9 5.6 25.83 242.07 0.11 0.23
N2 2.2 11.7 10.5 243.6 5.74 24.54 226.65 0.11 0.24
N3 2.34 12.1 10.9 237.2 7.19 28.81 367.76 0.23 0.44
N4 2.37 11.6 10.5 241.9 7.75 28.34 330.95 0.23 0.44
N5 2.5 11.8 10.6 236.7 7.45 31.98 407.92 0.31 0.52
N6 2.46 11.6 10.4 254.4 8.69 31.14 466.63 0.35 0.55
SWAN 100 m
N1 2.34 11.7 10.6 232.6 5.66 28.04 234.77 0.11 0.21
N2 2.3 11.7 10.5 239.3 5.97 27 248.23 0.11 0.24
N3 2.4 11.9 10.7 237.3 7.2 30.03 299.63 0.2 0.4
N4 2.54 11.8 10.7 237.6 8.21 33.05 373.94 0.24 0.44
N5 2.61 11.9 10.7 238.4 7.79 35.19 392.22 0.31 0.5
N6 2.71 11.8 10.7 245.6 9.22 38.16 489.23 0.35 0.55

Fig. 4. Hs -Te bi-variate distributions for nodes 1, 3, and 6, considering the whole wave database at 20 m water depth. Color indicates annual power; the numbers show the yearly
average hours where each bin of sea states is present. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)

the whole database) for N1, N3, and N6 at 20 m depth. Together
with Hs and Te , isolines of wave power are shown as well; the most
frequent sea states are within the range of Hs ¼ 1.5e3.5 m and Te ¼
9e13 s, and the associated wave energy power ranges from 10 kW=
m to 78 kW=m. It can be observed that the wave power, as expected,
increases from North to South, as the distribution of N6 is shifted up
compared to N1.
Operational conditions for WECs also require to assess the
principal wave directions. Fig. 5 depicts the rose of the wave power
for nodes N1, N3, and N6 at 20 m depth. For all the nodes the most
energetic sea states are characterized by a direction of origin be-
tween W and SW. The direction of origin shows a slightly western
shift when moving to southern latitudes.
3.3. Potential energy production from wave energy converters
The wave climate that has been propagated to intermediate-to-
shallow waters are now used in combination with the Power
Matrices of the selected WECs to produce time series of potential
energy production. The wave conditions obtained at water depths
that are within the operational limits recommended by the de-
velopers are used. CETO is thus tested at 20 m and 50 m water
depths; the performance of OEBuoy is assessed at a water depth of
100 m; Sebased AB at 50 m and 100 m water depths; SeaPower is
500 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505

Fig. 5. Wave rose corresponding to node 1, 3 and 6, concerning the total time, at 20 m of depth.

Fig. 6. Median Produced Electric Power kW for each device and at different nodes. Left Panel: considering the whole wave database. Right panel: considering only the winter period
(from June to September).

tested at 100 m water depth; finally Wavestar is evaluated at 15 m
water depth. Each device is studied at every location (from N1 to
N6). In Fig. 6 the Median Produced Electric Power is evaluated over
the whole studied period (left panel), and when considering only
winter months (June to September on the right panel).
The overall energy production increases for all the devices from
North to South, indeed for almost all the WECs the maximum
production is obtained in N6, except for CETO 50m (N5) and Sea-
based 50m (N5). It is also observed that the energy production is
higher when only the winter season is considered. The least pro-
duction is achieved, for almost all devices, in N2, except for CETO
20m (N3) and Wavestar (N3). These two devices are simulated in
shallower waters and present bigger oscillations of Median Pro-
duced Electric Power from North to South. A similar trend is fol-
lowed by CETO 50m, whereas Seabased seems to have an almost
constant production along the Chilean coast for both depths (50 m
and 100 m). From the general trends, SeaPower has the highest
production, among the devices with higher rated power and CETO
50m, among the WECs with lower rated power.
3.4. Capacity factor
An important parameter, closely related with the Produced
Power, is the Capacity Factor (Cf ), which is the ratio between the
power production and the Rated Power. It is computed from the
following equation [17,39]:
PE
Cf ¼ ,100½% (4)
Np
where Np is the Rated Power, and PE is the mean electric power
produced by the WEC. This parameter is important to assess
whether the device is running close to the maximum of its design
capacities. Bozzi et al. [24] have shown that with a correct scaling
the Cf may be importantly increased.
Overall, the Capacity Factors stay under 30% (Fig. 7); the highest
values are reached by SeaBased (around 20%), while CETO shows
the smallest values. As noted for the Median Produced Electric
 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505
Fig. 7. Capacity factor for each device at different nodes. Left panel: considering the whole wave database. Right panel: considering only the winter period (from June to September).
Power, also the Cf increases with the latitude. For the devices with
higher Rated Power OEBuoy has the highest values of Cf , followed
closely by Wavestar and SeaPower. The Capacity Factor of the latter
devices is very similar being around 12%, while for the former is
around 13%. Conversely, significant differences are shown for the
WECs with lower Rated Power, Seabased at 50 m performed simi-
larly to 100 m, as CETO 20m with CETO 50m. However, the differ-
ence between the two is notable, Seabased has almost four times
the Cf of CETO.
3.5. Capture Width Ratio
Another important parameter to evaluate is the Capture Width
(CW) [40,41] that accounts for the energy harnessing efficiency of
the WEC. This parameter has dimensions of m, and represents the
width of the wave crest that is captured and absorbed by the device.
This parameter can be made dimensionless and expressed in per-
centage for more useful comparison among different devices. The
non-dimensional index, the Capture Width Ratio (CWR), is
computed by dividing the Capture Width by the largest dimension
of the device [40]:
CW P this. In the results presented herein, we have not included this
CWR ¼ ¼ E ,100 ½%
B P,B
where PE is the power potentially produced by the device in kW, P
is the wave incident power in kW=m, and B is the largest dimension
of the WEC. The dimensions for the devices considered in the
Table 5
Dimensions of the studied devices.
Dimension of the WECs [m]
CETO
OEBuoy
Seabased
Seapower
WaveStar
501
present study are summarize in Table 5. In Fig. 8 the median values
of CWR for the different WECs at the different nodes N1eN6 are
shown. The highest CWR, among the devices with higher Rated
Power, is achieved by OEBuoy (around 20%), while SeaPower and
WaveStar CWR are characterized by values around 17% and 13%
respectively. Whereas, for the devices with lower Rated Power, the
CWR of CETO is almost the double of SeaBased, being around 7%
and 3% respectively.
4. Discussion
Among the devices with Rated Power 1200 kW, the Capacity
Factors are rather similar (around 12%). For the WECs with Rated
Power < 1200 kW, SeaBased technology shows the highest Ca-
pacity Factor (nearly 20%) compared with CETO (nearly 6%); the
results are the opposite for the Capture Width Ratio (nearly 7% for
CETO and 3% for SeaBased). The CWRs of the devices with higher
Rated Power are between 13% and 20% (Table 6). While these
criteria are important for selecting the best technology under
specific wave conditions, another variable that should be consid-
ered is the distance to the coast where the WECs shall be installed
since investment and operational costs would largely depend on
(5) variable but it is worth evaluating the distances associated to the
different water depths at each node. In Table 7 these distances are
summarized, while in Fig. 9 it is shown an example of the bathy-
metric profile for N2. The higher the water depth, the farther the
node position is from the shore, so the local seabed slope could be a
Reference
7 Rusu [41]
50 Rusu [41]
3 Rusu [41]
67 Rusu [41]
70 Rusu [41]
502 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505

Fig. 8. Median Capture Width Ratio (CWR) for each device at different nodes. Left panel: considering the whole wave database. Right panel: considering only the winter period
(from June to September).

Table 6
Final comparison between the studied devices. MPEP is the Median Produced
Electric Power (spatial average), expressed in kW, while Cf is the Capacity factor
expressed in %, the CWR is the Capture Width Ratio, which also is dimensionless and
expressed in %, both also spatial averaged.

DEVICE MPEP [kW] Cf [%] CWR [%]

Rated Power 1200 kW

OEBuoy 318.02 12.70 19.96
SeaPower 357.12 11.54 16.72 Fig. 9. Bathymetric profile to the coast for Node 2.
WaveStar 274.57 11.81 13.04
Rated Power < 1200 kW
CETO 20m 13.73 5.88 6.94
CETO 50m 15.39 6.70 7.74 bear the wave breaking. Filtering extreme events would signifi-
SeaBased 50m 2.96 20.18 3.47 cantly reduce production and operational costs while increasing
SeaBased 100m 3.16 21.37 3.32 the survivability of the devices [9]. These arguments would favor
the use of CETO, Seabased, or WaveStar technologies along the
Chilean coast, since they can be installed in water depths smaller
critical variable to define the best cost-efficient technology for than 50 m.
Chile. CETO and SeaBased technologies, studied at two different
Installing the devices in limited water depths has different ad- depths, shown no significant differences in Produced Power, Ca-
vantages as the narrowing of the directional wave spreading and pacity Factors, and Capture Width Ratio. These findings suggest to
the filtering of extreme waves conditions [42]. In shallow water the select the installation point that is closer to the coast (i.e. 20 m
filtering of extreme events is also due to the bathymetric-controlled water depth for CETO and 50 m for SeaBased).
breaking, despite it is a problem for some WECs, for others it is not Among the high-rated power WECs (Np  1200 kW), SeaPower
an issue. Such as, the WaveStar can rise the floats out of the water is the best ranked (Table 8) considering the Median Produced Po-
during heavy storms. In addition, submerged devices (CETO) can wer, whereas OEBuoy performs better in terms of the Capture

Table 7
Distance from the shore of the nodes along the coast of Chile for every depth.

Distance from the shore [m]

Depth [m] 15 20 50 100

N1 600 650 780 1160

N2 438 585 1650 3619
N3 1300 1956 9877 19957
N4 575 664 1395 2978
N5 167 2396 16703 25889
N6 1090 1213 2820 9534
 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505
Table 8
Ranking of the best operating devices with Rated Power  1200 kW: PE , produced median electric power, Cf , Capacity Factor and CWR, Capture Width Ratio.
Devices with Rated Power  1200 kW
Ranking
1+
PE ½kW SeaPower
Cf ½% OEBuoy
CWR½% OEBuoy
Width Ratio and Capacity Factor. Wavestar shows poorer perfor-
mances in terms of Median Produced Power and Cf but it can be
installed on shallower waters (15 m) than OEBuoy (100 m) and
SeaPower (100 m). The difference in Median Produced Electric
Power between these and SeaPower is around 40 kW for CETO and
80 kW for Wavestar. However the Capture Width Ratio and the
Median Produced Electric Power of SeaPower are higher than
Wavestar. The performance between OEBuoy and SeaPower is very
similar, but OEBuoy performs better when concerning the Capacity
Factor and the Capture Width Ratio. Therefore, this device should
be considered as the best device for the coast of Chile for the WECs
with rated power  1200 kW.
For lower rated power WECs (Np < 1200 kW), CETO 50m shows
the best performance regarding the Median Produced Power and
the Capture Width Ratio (Table 9), whereas its capacity factor is
lesser than Seabased 100m. Nonetheless, CETO has two other po-
tential advantages over SeaBased: it has been enhanced for the
production of freshwater [43], and it can be installed at 20 m. It
appears then that CETO can be considered as the best option for
lower rated power devices along the Chilean coast.
The devices performed differently along the Chilean coast, in
this regard the performance of the two selected devices was ranked
as a function of the nodes, the result was that for OEBuoy the best
node in which it performed better is N6. Whereas, for CETO 50m
the best node seems to be N4 and for CETO 20m the best node
seems to be again N6.
Nevertheless, various aspects might be more important to
define the best spots. Among them, extreme wave recurrence
studies will certainly be key to assess the survivability of the WECs
and the mooring system. Similarly, the distance to ports and the
analysis of installation and maintenance logistics (e.g. access win-
dow), might also play an important role for the definition of the
best spots for WECs operation. For example the access window
depends on the vehicle used to reach the devices [44]. Generally
speaking, different kind of vessels can bear up different wave
conditions usually characterized by wave height comprised be-
tween 1.5 and 3 m. Harsher wave climate results in more frequent
occurrence of extreme events that can damage the installed devices
and reduces the access window.
5. Conclusions
The results presented herein constitute the most thorough
Table 9
Ranking of the best operating devices with Rated Power < 1200 kW: PE , produced median electric power, Cf , Capacity Factor and CWR, Capture Width Ratio.
Devices with Rated Power < 1200 kW
Ranking
1+
PE ½kW CETO 50m
Cf ½% Seabased 100m
CWR½% CETO 50m
503
2+ 3+
OEBuoy Wavestar
Wavestar SeaPower
SeaPower Wavestar
analysis to date of potential wave energy power extraction under
realistic conditions for the central-south coast of Chile. This wave
resource analysis provides better grounds for assessing the wave
climate variability both for different intermediate-to-shallow water
depths and for wider ranges of latitudinal spots. The nearshore
wave energy resource shows mild monthly variations, with the
maximum wave power in June (winter) and the minimum in
December (summer). The average yearly wave power is among the
highest in the world (ranging from 10 kW=m to 78 kW=m), with
energy concentrated in the W-SW directions, and increasing from
northern to southern latitudes.
The performance of five Wave Energy Converters is assessed
using the generated nearshore wave database at different water
depths (each device at its optimal depth, as recommended by the
developers) and latitudes. Simulating the devices at their optimal
depth allows to generate accurate outputs of Produced Power,
Capture Width Ratios, and Capacity Factors. These parameters
where used to compare the performance of the WECs along the
Chilean coast. Among the devices with higher Rated Power 1200
kW, both the Capacity Factors and Capture Width Ratios show only
mild differences (between 11% and 13%, and 13% and 20%, respec-
tively). For WECs with lower Rated Power ( < 1200 kW), we found
more differences in the performance of the devices. SeaBased
technology shows the highest Capacity Factor (nearly 20%)
compared with CETO (nearly 6%), but the performance in terms of
the Capture Width Ratio is higher for CETO (nearly 7%) than for
SeaBased (3%).
Rusu and Onea [17] have studied the behaviour of different
WECs along the world, therefore it is useful to take into account this
work to compare the potential of the Chilean coast with the rest of
the world. In this work the median was used as central tendency
indicator instead of the mean, however, in order to compare our
results to the ones obtained by Rusu and Onea [17] it is necessary to
use the mean. Starting with the comparison of A5-N6 (Fig. 10), the
first thing that attract attention is that, although the nodes are very
close, the PE are very different. The under-estimation of this value
in the paper of Rusu and Onea [17] can be explained with different
reasons, as for example that N6 is further south than A5 and that
the latter one is situated near a bay, while the former is close to a
headland.
It is confirmed that the long coastal border of Chile offers
excellent conditions for producing wave energy, with a fairly uni-
form wave climate and only a mild seasonal variability.
2+ 3+ 4+
CETO 20m Seabased 100m Seabased 50m
Seabased 50m CETO 50m CETO 20m
CETO 20m Seabased 50m Sebased 100m
504 O.M. Mazzaretto et al. / Renewable Energy 159 (2020) 494e505
Fig. 10. Comparison of Mean Produced Power (Mega Watts [MW]) between three WECs (SeaPower, OEBuoy, Wavestar) among various locations around the world, taken from
Ref. [17]. The colors in the colorbar represents the devices. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.)
Nonetheless, in-depth studies on extreme wave events and their
return periods is sill lacking, and it is key to assess the design
conditions and survivability of WECs.
Declaration of competing interest
We wish to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest
associated with this publication and there has been no significant
financial support for this work that could have influenced its
outcome.
We confirm that the manuscript has been read and approved by
all named authors and that there are no other persons who satisfied
the criteria for authorship but are not listed. We further confirm
that the order of authors listed in the manuscript has been
approved by all of us.
We confirm that we have given due consideration to the pro-
tection of intellectual property associated with this work and that
there are no impediments to publication, including the timing of
publication, with respect to intellectual property. In so doing we
confirm that we have followed the regulations of our institutions
concerning intellectual property.
We understand that the Corresponding Author is the sole con-
tact for the Editorial process (including Editorial Manager and
direct communications with the office). He is responsible for
communicating with the other authors about progress, sub-
missions of revisions and final approval of proofs. We confirm that
we have provided a current, correct email address which is acces-
sible by the Corresponding Author.
Acknowledgements
This study was conducted under the partial support of MERIC -
Marine Energy Research & Innovation Center (14CEI2-28228).
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