GNGTS 2024 - Atti del 42° Convegno Nazionale

Session 3.1 GNGTS 2024 The estmated global potental resource for each of these sources is as follows: - Wave energy 80000 TWh/year, - Tidal energy > 300 TWh/year, - Current 800 TWh/year, - Salinity gradient 2000 TWh/year, - Thermal gradient 10000 Twh/year. The idea of convertng surface wave energy into useful forms of energy is not a recent one. The frst patent, known for using the energy of sea, dates back to 1799, and was fled in Paris by Girard and his son. Recently, following the problems of climate change, a new interest in renewable energy has grown around the world and the scientfc community examined the potental for generatng electricity from the sea. Fig. 1 – Diferent types of technologies for the exploitaton of marine energy (Energy, 2017). A large number of technologies (Fig. 1) have been developed for the exploitaton of sea energy. More than a thousand patents have been registered around the world, but none of these technologies has yet established itself as the dominant one. The most used parameters to distnguish the diferent technologies are: the positon with respect to the coast, the principle of operaton and the power take-of system. A detailed descripton of the technologies currently available is outside the topics of interest; therefore, reference should be made to the available scientfc literature. Many are the projects dedicated to marine energy that have been funded and implemented in Europe like: Pico, Lysekil Project, European Marine Energy Centre, DanWEC Hanstholm, Wave Hub, Yongsoo, Bimep, Oosterschelde Tidal Project, Belmullet, Santoña wave farm, FlanSea Project, Pilot Zone, Perth Wave Energy Project, Limpet, Mutriku, Aguçadoura, Bernera, Aegir, Lewis Wave Energy Farm, Reedsport OPT Wave Park, Coos Bay OPT Wave Park. Some of these led to the creaton of wave farms in Italy like: Iswec (La Spezia, Alghero and Pantelleria), SouthEnergy (Tuscan Archipelago, Punta Righini - Castglioncello) and Rewec (several italian ports).