Numerical Estimates On Ocean Energy Resources Of Qingdao Under Wave-current Interaction

With the rapid development of world economy and the sharp growth of the world’s population, the world’s energy consumption is increasing by the day. Because of the non-renewable of fossil fuels, it’s an urgent thing to develop new energy and change the traditional energy structure.As a kind of powerful, pollution-free and renewable energy resource, ocean energy is known as the green energy in twenty-first Century.It has attracted more and more attention.To develop and utilize ocean energy more effectively, the first step is to understand the distribution of ocean energy resources. This paper simulated the ocean energy resources in Qingdao area with numerical simulation method.The details are as follows.Firstly, the MIKE21 HD FM model was used to simulate the hydrodynamic condition of Qingdao area including tidal level, current velocity, direction and so on. Compared these simulated parameters with the measured data. The comparison shows great correspondence, indicating that this model is able to simulate the hydrodynamic environment of Qingdao in a reasonable accuracy. Then the hydrodynamic parameters of Qingdao area were simulated for the whole year of 2014,and on the basis of the simulation data, tidal-current energy density were evaluated.In terms of numerical results, Jiaozhou Bay, Zhaitang island and Laoshantou are available to develop tidal-current energy.And the distribution of current energy has small changes in different seasons.Secondly, simulating the wave parameters of the Qingdao ocean area during 2014 on the base of MIKE21 Spectrum Wave module.During the simulation,the embedded grids methodology was adopted and the effect of tidal current on wave parameters was considered to ensure the accuracy.It was proved that the wave energy resources are rich in Qingdao area by the results of the evaluation. The annual maximum of wave energy density is up to 200kW/m and the annual average value reaches to 8kW/m. The wave energy density roughly trends to decreasing from offshore to nearshore regions. The distribution of wave energy are more obviously influenced by the seasonal change,poorly in summer.Finally,simulating the wave field in two cases:with current and without current. Then.the wave energy resources of this two cases were calculated using the same method.To investigate the effect of the current on the assessment of wave energy, the paper compared the differences between the results of the calculation.The results shows that the effect of the current on the assessment of wave energy mainly appears in the nearshore shallow water area.More specifically, the maximum value of the effect could be over 100%,while it is less than 3% in the offshore area.