The investigation of various aspects of the wave climate at a wave energy test site is essential for the development of reliable and efficient wave energy conversion technology. This paper presents studies of the wave climate based on nine years of wave observations from the 2005–2013 period measured with a wave measurement buoy at the Lysekil wave energy test site located off the west coast of Sweden. A detailed analysis of the wave statistics is investigated to reveal the characteristics of the wave climate at this specific test site. The long-term extreme waves are estimated from applying the Peak over Threshold (POT) method on the measured wave data. The significant wave height and the maximum wave height at the test site for different return periods are also compared. In this study, a new approach using a mixed-distribution model is proposed to describe the long-term behavior of the significant wave height and it shows an impressive goodness of fit to wave data from the test site. The mixed-distribution model is also applied to measured wave data from four other sites and it provides an illustration of the general applicability of the proposed model. The methodologies used in this paper can be applied to general wave climate analysis of wave energy test sites to estimate extreme waves for the survivability assessment of wave energy converters and characterize the long wave climate to forecast the wave energy resource of the test sites and the energy production of the wave energy converters.

An offshore wave energy converter (WEC) was successfully launched at the Swedish west coast in the middle of March 2006. The WEC is based on a permanent magnet linear generator located on the sea floor driven by a point absorber. A measuring station has been installed on a nearby island where all measurements and experiments on the WEC have been carried out. The output voltage from the generator fluctuates both in amplitude and frequency and must therefore be converted to enable grid connection. In order to study the voltage conversion, the measuring station was fitted with a six pulse diode rectifier and a capacitive filter during the autumn of 2006. The object of this paper is to present a detailed description of the Lysekil research site. Special attention will be given to the power absorption by the generator when it is connected to a nonlinear load.

This paper analyzes temperature measurements acquired in the offshore operation of a wave energy converter array. The three directly driven wave energy converters have linear generators and are connected to a marine substation placed on the seabed. The highly irregular individual linear generator voltages are rectified and added on a common dc-link and inverted to 50 Hz to facilitate future grid-connection. The electrical power is transmitted to shore and converted to heat in a measuring station. The first results of temperature measurements on substation components and on the stator of one of the linear generators are presented based on operation in linear and in nonlinear damping. The results indicate that there might be some convective heat transfer in the substation vessel. If high power levels are extracted from the waves, this has to be considered when placing components in the substation vessel in order to avoid heating from neighboring components. The results also indicate that the temperature increase in the linear generator stator is very small. Failure due to excessive heating of the stator winding polyvinyl chloride cable insulation is unlikely to occur even in very energetic sea states. Should this conclusion be incorrect, the thermal conductivity between the stator and the hull of the wave energy converter could be enhanced. Another suggested alteration is to lower the resistive losses by reducing the linear generator current density.

This paper details a method for strain measurements in the inner framework structure of the single heaving buoy wave energy converter (WEC). This type of the WEC consists of a linear direct drive generator placed on the seafloor and connected to the floating buoy through the connection line. The study focuses on estimation of stress in the inner framework structure of the WEC using strain measurements in the material. Stress in ocean structures is as important as maximum stress. The offshore experiment took place at the Lysekil research site a few kilometers from the Swedish west coast. Stresses had the maximum value when the translator hit an end stop. Interesting observations were made: compressive stress occurred in the framework crossbar at a sea state of 1.32-m waves, but both compressive and tensile stresses occurred at a sea state of 3.2-m waves. A computational procedure employs good results. Error estimation is calculated and represented. This work is a step that may influence future design of wave energy devices in terms of the material aspect, survivability in a hard wave climate, and cost-effective renewable energies.