Assessment of wind and wave energy potential along the Indian coast

The focus is now on sustainable development, which is inevitable without harnessing renewable energy sources. The fundamental element in wind wave generation is the interaction between air and sea which helps in momentum exchange between atmosphere and ocean. The Indian coastline is under a dynamic wave climate with the action of wind. Indian landmass has two tropical basins, the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, which have tremendous potential to tap renewable energy. The variations in wave climate due to dynamic-wind have to be assessed. Hindcast data obtained from Global Climate Models help us in the long-term analysis of wind and wave climate. In an attempt to explore the renewable energy potential along the Indian coast, a numerical wave model is developed using MIKE 21 SW module to assess the wind and wave climate. A gridded global wind speed dataset from ECMWF called ERA-Interim wind speed data of 38 years (1981 to 2018) is used as input for the numerical model. The dataset and numerical model performance were validated against in-situ measurements. The results showed amongst the locations studied off Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh had good potential to extract offshore wind energy using offshore wind turbines.