Abstract
Marine Renewable Energy (MRE) systems require detailed information regarding the wave induced loads. This paper studies the ability of a phase-resolving model to provide wave information required by MRE applications in coastal and nearshore areas. The phase-resolving approach provides an improved description of the nonlinear wave field found in shallow waters. This approach may also produce other hydrodynamic variables that could benefit the MRE deployment such as the wave height distribution or the wave-induced currents. A dataset collected at a French potential wave energy site allows for model performances quantification. However due to their high computational cost, phase-resolving models are usually used for the simulation of wave packets or short duration wave events and they cannot provide climatologies needed for deriving proper statistics on the seasonal or inter-annual variability of the wave power. Such long term time series are provided by phase-averaged models. This paper aims at drawing attention on the potential benefit of coupling complementary wave modeling strategies (phase-averaged and phase-resolving approaches) to provide advanced wave information to the MRE actors.