Wave Energy Farm & Coastal Shadow

Ocean Swell

Incident wave height H₀ 1.6 m

Wave period T 8.0 s

Power Take-Off (PTO)

PTO damping b 120 kN·s/m

Live Readout

Captured power

0 kW

Array efficiency

Wave transmission

100%

Shore wave height

0.0 m

Healthy nearshore mixing

Enough wave energy reaches the coastal zone to keep sediment and oxygen turning over normally.

How it works

Each buoy is a heaving point absorber: a single-degree-of-freedom mass-spring-damper driven by the wave. Its equation of motion is

m z̈ + b ż + c z = F₀ cos(ωt)
c = ρ g A_wp   (hydrostatic stiffness)
F₀ ≈ ρ g A_wp · a_local   (Froude–Krylov excitation, small-buoy approx.)

Solving for steady state gives the heave amplitude z₀ and the mean power the PTO damper absorbs:

z₀ = F₀ / √[(c − mω²)² + (bω)²]
P_buoy = ½ b ω² z₀²

Each row of buoys removes real power from the wave. Wave power flux per unit crest width follows deep-water linear wave theory, J = ρg²H²T/(32π), so the leftover flux after a row sets the amplitude reaching the next row — this is the physical "wave shadow" a farm casts on the water behind it.

H₀, T — the incident swell driving every buoy and the undisturbed wave field.
PTO damping b — too little and the buoy swings freely without harvesting much energy; too much and it resists motion and stalls, exactly as with a real linear generator or hydraulic PTO. There is an optimum for each period.
Farm ON/OFF — toggles extraction off entirely so you can compare the undisturbed wave field to the attenuated one.

The coastal-ecology read-out is an illustrative model, not measured field data: nearshore wave energy drives sediment resuspension, oxygen mixing and larval transport that many intertidal and shallow-reef communities depend on, so environmental-impact assessments for real wave farms explicitly study how much this "shadow" reduces energy reaching the shore.

Wave-energy buoy Healthy coastal zone Stressed coastal zone

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