Investor Presentaiton
Energies 2019, 12, 3658
19 of 37
4. Case Study of Brazil
4.1. Resource Assessment Results
4.1.1. Ocean Current Energy
Figures 13 and 14 show the spatial variation of the ocean current resources along the Brazilian
coast in terms of the annual and seasonal average current speed (m/s) and power density (W/m²).
As shown in Figure 13, the maximum annual average can be observed in the north equatorial margin
of Brazil with a velocity of 1.52 m/s. This region is influenced by the NBC. These regions are located at
a distance of between 120 and 300 km of the coastline. The same pattern can be observed considering
the seasonal distribution. A maximum speed value of 1.67 m/s occurs during autumn. It can be seen
that the speed values barely reach 2 m/s, which is recommended for commercial ocean current energy
extraction [32]. The current speed values are not significant (less than 0.7 m/s) for the regions A and B.
They occur due to the BC flow and are higher during the spring. Figure 14 shows the power density
(W/m²), calculated using Equation (1), across the Brazilian coastline. As expected, following the
speed values, region D represents the most energetic area, and power density values higher than
500 W/m² can be observed for some areas. Table 3 contains the average values of the seasonal mean
power as well as the SV and COV values. The seasonal average values for regions D and C show that,
in contrast to the regions A and B, the current power density is higher during austral autumn and
winter compared to austral summer and spring. This is due to the seasonal climatological behavior
of the NBC [25]. The fact that the power density of the region D is significantly higher than that of
other regions indicates that the values of SV and COV are less important when the objective is to
determine the best region for exploring the ocean current energy. However, these values are important
for techno-economic studies of the corresponding energy extracting technologies in the North region.
Latitude
9°N
0°
9°S
18°S
27°S
Annual
50°W 45°W
40°W 35°W 30°W 25°W
Longitude
Summer
2.0
Autumn
1.8
1.6
1.4
1.2
1.0
Winter
Spring
0.8
0
0.6
0.4
0.2
Current Speed (m/s)
Figure 13. Annual and seasonal (summer, autumn, winter, and spring) mean surface current speed
(m/s) at the Brazilian coastline between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2017.View entire presentation