Catching the Right Wave: Evaluating Wave Energy Resources and Potential Compatibility with Existing Marine and Coastal Uses

et al. (2012) Catching the Right Wave: Evaluating Wave Energy Resources and Potential Compatibility with Existing Marine and Coastal Uses. PLoS ONE 7(11): e47598. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0047598 Catching the Right Wave: Evaluating Wave Energy Resources and Potential Compatibility with Existing Marine and Coastal Uses Choong-Ki Kim 0 Jodie E. Toft 0 Michael Papenfus 0 Gregory Verutes 0 Anne D. Guerry 0 Marry H. Ruckelshaus 0 Katie K. Arkema 0 Gregory Guannel 0 Spencer A. Wood 0 Joanna R. Bernhardt 0 Heather Tallis 0 Mark L. Plummer 0 Benjamin S. Halpern 0 Malin L. Pinsky 0 Michael W. Beck 0 Francis Chan 0 Kai M. A. Chan 0 Phil S. Levin 0 Stephen Polasky 0 Vanesa Magar, Plymouth University, United Kingdom 0 1 The Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, Stanford, California, United States of America, 2 Ocean Science and Technology Institute, Inha University , Nam-gu, Incheon , Korea , 3 Western Ecology Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , Corvallis, Oregon , United States of America, 4 Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia , Vancouver, British Columbia , Canada , 5 NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center , Seattle , Washington, United States of America, 6 National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America, 7 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University , Princeton , New Jersey, United States of America , 8 Global Marine Team, The Nature Conservancy, Santa Cruz , California, United States of America, 9 Department of Zoology, Oregon State University , Corvallis, Oregon , United States of America , 10 IRES , University of British Columbia , Vancouver, British Columbia , Canada , 11 Department of Applied Economics, University of Minnesota , St. Paul, Minnesota , United States of America Many hope that ocean waves will be a source for clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy, yet wave energy conversion facilities may affect marine ecosystems through a variety of mechanisms, including competition with other human uses. We developed a decision-support tool to assist siting wave energy facilities, which allows the user to balance the need for profitability of the facilities with the need to minimize conflicts with other ocean uses. Our wave energy model quantifies harvestable wave energy and evaluates the net present value (NPV) of a wave energy facility based on a capital investment analysis. The model has a flexible framework and can be easily applied to wave energy projects at local, regional, and global scales. We applied the model and compatibility analysis on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada to provide information for ongoing marine spatial planning, including potential wave energy projects. In particular, we conducted a spatial overlap analysis with a variety of existing uses and ecological characteristics, and a quantitative compatibility analysis with commercial fisheries data. We found that wave power and harvestable wave energy gradually increase offshore as wave conditions intensify. However, areas with high economic potential for wave energy facilities were closer to cable landing points because of the cost of bringing energy ashore and thus in nearshore areas that support a number of different human uses. We show that the maximum combined economic benefit from wave energy and other uses is likely to be realized if wave energy facilities are sited in areas that maximize wave energy NPV and minimize conflict with existing ocean uses. Our tools will help decision-makers explore alternative locations for wave energy facilities by mapping expected wave energy NPV and helping to identify sites that provide maximal returns yet avoid spatial competition with existing ocean uses. - Funding: Funding was provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (Grant 1874, http://www.moore.org). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Wave energy has the potential to generate substantial amounts of clean, safe, reliable, affordable and renewable electricity, thereby making it an appealing way to meet burgeoning energy demands [1]. Although in its infancy, the wave energy industry may be poised to grow as rapidly as the offshore wind industry, which has become established in several northern European countries in the past decade. Among various renewable energy resources (e.g., solar, wind, and tidal energy), wave energy has the highest power density and provides relatively continuous and predictable power, which is advantageous for electrical grid operation [2]. Costs of electricity generated by wave energy have decreased since the 1980s and are likely to decrease further as technologies develop and the industry expands [3]. As the costs of energy from fossil fuels increase, wave energy may become economically feasible in the near future. Consequently, decisionmakers, the private sector and the public are interested in converting wave energy into electricity. Two important steps in this process are evaluating a sites capacity to produce electricity and identifying potential impacts on the surrounding ecosystem and the activities it supports [4]. While waves may provide a source of clean and renewable energy, wave energy conversion projects may conflict with existing ocean uses or strategies for protecting marine species and habitats. The potential impacts of wave energy conversion facilities include changes in fishing opportunities, pelagic and benthic habitat, recreational activities, aesthetic views, hydrodynamic and wave environments, and navigational hazards [5,6,7]. Many of the potential impacts are site-specific and the magnitude of these impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems is poorly understood because of the as-yet limited experience with wave energy conversion projects. This knowledge-gap has hindered the development of a practical tool to support spatial planning related to wave energy projects. Evaluating a sites capacity for wave energy requires information about various factors including wave power resources, the characteristics of wave energy conversion devices, cost-effectiveness, constraints on siting of energy conversion facilities, and compatibility with other human uses or ecosystem attributes. Marine spatial planning, a nascent effort in North America, is a process in which planners consider the interactions among and cumulative impacts of human activities in coastal and ocean spaces [8]. Efficient marine spatial planning for wave energy projects requires a comprehensive framework for synthesizing the aforementioned diverse information. Estimating wave power resources can help identify energy-rich and sustained resource areas for potential siting. Previous studies have estimated potential wave power at various scales. For example, studi (...truncated)