A flagship wave energy study led by the two leading European universities has found that wave power could become cost-competitive with offshore wind by the 2030s at favourable locations. Experts from LUT University School of Energy Systems, Finland, recently joined forces with the Marine Renewable Energies Lab, Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.

The study incorporates real data from a state-of-the-art wave energy converter, under commercialisation, and addresses a gap in the global impact that wave energy can have.

The study further concludes that wave power will become cost-competitive with offshore wind power within a decade, with levelised cost of electricity below 70 €/MWh by 2035. Mid-term projections indicate wave power competitiveness with offshore wind power, suggesting a levelised cost of electricity (LCoE) below 100 €/MWh by 2030. In the 2030s, point absorber based wave power can reach a potential  of 39,700 TWh of electricity for <100 €/MWh. By 2050, the LCoE could further decrease to <50 €/MWh with the potential to provide 29,000 TWh of electricity.

The work helps to illustrate how wave power can contribute to the diversification of energy sources, especially considering its complementarity with solar energy. The findings are particularly relevant for countries and regions with a high population density and other factors limiting the onshore renewable energy potential, and would otherwise depend on energy imports.

This research was conducted as part of the EU-SCORES project. Please find the full article here.

For more information

LUT University School of Energy Systems (LUT) 
Christian Breyer, Professor for Solar Economy
christian.breyer@lut.fi

Delft University of Technology, Marine Renewable Energies Lab, Faculty of Civil Engineering & Geosciences 
George Lavidas, Asst Professor of Marine Renewables
g.lavidas@tudelft.nl