Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

Ocean renewable energy systems are one of the most profitable sources of energy in our planet and exploiting it will help answer the energy needs of the population with less cost and damage to the environment.
Offshore wind energy is one the promising sources of energy and it has been exploited in different parts of the globe. With its high energy production, the offshore wind farms are considered more efficient than the onshore ones due the high speed of the wind and the size of the wind turbines used.
Wave energy is yet another promising energy sector that has been targeted by different countries, but still under research for different designs. Water, which is denser than wind, is a great source of energy when exploited adequately through maximizing the output and minimizing the cost.
The purpose of this capstone research project is to investigate the potential of these two sources of energy in the Moroccan ocean. The study focuses on analyzing the combined potential of both offshore wind and wave energy. The potential site was mainly deduced from previous work done in the Moroccan region using wind and wave data and the combination and analysis of these studies led to the choice of Essaouira as the most promising location for the implementation of the energy farm. The next step consisted of deciding about the best hybrid wind wave energy system from the highest power output and availability of information criteria. This was done through comparing different under research hybrid projects.
The data used in this capstone project was extracted from an open-source satellite through gathering 7 years data of both offshore wind and wave speeds for the same region in the western Essaouira offshore.
This data was analyzed using excel to deduce the extreme weather that needs to be handled by the firm as well as the estimation of the yearly power output.
An economic analysis was run at the end of the project to study its feasibility from an investment point of view.