Wave atlas of French Polynesia - Application on modelling wave energy facilities development in Islands and the related consequences on CO2 emission reductions.

A new wave energy atlas database for French Polynesia

A wave reanalysis was carried out over the whole French Polynesian ZEE, using Météo-France's MFWAM model at 0.05° resolution, derived from the WAM model with a spatial resolution of 5 km, a three-hourly step, and a temporal depth of 30 years. These results have been published on the ODATIS open data platform.

Compared with existing reanalysis, the islands are better modelled, and it leads to better estimates of wave conditions and propagation.

It has been applied to wave energy evaluation over the whole French Polynesia.

Learnings, opportunities and limits of this new wave energy atlas data base

This has been used as the basis for evaluating and prospecting wave energy sites for the development of several energy facilities in order to select the best spots.

Our work deals with the learnings, opportunities and limits of using these datasets to calculate the estimated production of a wave energy facility and the CO2 emission reductions that the sites concerned can target.

An example for all islands

Why and how can the same types of methodology be deployed on other islands?