Understanding the uncertainty in the technical performance level assessment for wave energy

Abstract

The design of wave energy converters (WECs) has been explored with interest, with varying design concepts emerging across both research and industry. One critical element that governs the speed of adoption is the performance of a WEC concept. WEC performance has been assessed using the Technology Performance Level (TPL) assessment, which provides designers with a quantitative score, situating a grid-scale WEC concept on a scale from 1 to 9. The TPL assessment is designed to be used during design iteration, when a WEC concept is fully ideated, to enable designers to consider potential means of improving the downstream performance of the concept. One concern that may be slowing developers’ adoption of TPL is the inherent uncertainty in the assessment, and how uncertainty in the individual questions may contribute to the final score. In this work, we quantify the uncertainty present in the assessment using both traditional mathematical operations and a Monte Carlo simulation. Results show areas of improvement of the TPL assessment, enabling TPL practitioners and users to understand with more accuracy those design elements that can be improved to impact device performance.