Site Selection of Combined Offshore Wind and Wave Energy Farms: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Growing energy demand worldwide and onshore limitations have increased interest in offshore renewable energy exploitation. A combination of offshore renewable energy resources such as wind and wave energy can produce stable power output at a lower cost compared to a single energy source. Consequently, identifying the best locations for constructing combined offshore renewable energy farms is crucial. This paper investigates the technical, economic, social, and environmental aspects of Combined Offshore Wind and Wave Energy Farm (COWWEF) site selection. Past literature was evaluated using a systematic review method to synthesize, criticize, and categorize study regions, dataset characteristics, constraints, evaluation criteria, and methods used for the site selection procedure. The results showed that most studied regions belong to European countries, and numerical model outputs were mainly used in the literature as met-ocean data due to the limited coverage and low spatiotemporal resolution of buoy and satellite observations. Environmental and marine usage are the main constraints in the site selection process. Among all constraints, shipping lanes, marine protected areas, and military exercise areas were predominately considered to be excluded from the potential sites for COWWEF development. The technical viability and economic feasibility of project deployment are emphasized in the literature. Resource assessment and distance to infrastructures were mostly evaluated among techno-economic criteria. Wind and wave energy power are the most important criteria for evaluating feasibility, followed by water depth, indicators of variability and correlation of the energy resources, and distance to the nearest port. Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) methods and resource-based analysis were the most-used evaluation frameworks. Resource-based studies mainly used met-ocean datasets to determine site technical and operational performance (i.e., resource availability, variability, and correlation), while MCDM methods were applied when a broader set of criteria were evaluated. Based on the conducted review, it was found that the literature lacks evaluation of seabed conditions (seabed type and slope) and consideration of uncertainty involved in the COWWEF site selection process. In addition, the market analysis and evaluation of environmental impacts of COWWEF development, as well as impacts of climate change on combined exploitation of offshore wind and wave energy, have rarely been investigated and need to be considered in future studies. Finally, by providing a comprehensive repository of synthesized and categorized information and research gaps, this study represents a road map for decision-makers to determine the most suitable locations for COWWEF developments.