Wave-to-wire modelling and hydraulic PTO optimization of a dense point absorber WEC array

We investigate the hydrodynamic interactions and power extraction efficiency of a dense array of Point Absorber (PA) Wave Energy Converters (WECs) clustered around the fixed pillar of a wind turbine –the Ocean Grazer device– with a standard hydraulic Power Take-Off (PTO) system. Using potential flow theory, a detailed wave-to-wire model is developed in WEC-Sim with four distinct hydraulic PTO designs: i) Multi PTO-with individual hydraulic PTO systems for each buoy, ii) Shared PTO V1-with a unified PTO system for the entire array, iii) Shared PTO V2-with the accumulator volume split into two segments, and iv) Shared PTO V3-with four strategically distributed segments. Key parameters such as the diameter of the hydraulic pistons, volume and pre-charged pressure of the high-pressure accumulators, hydraulic motor displacement and the speed of the electric generator are optimized with a genetic algorithm and a parametric analysis across various sea states. The results highlight that strategically allocating the accumulators across the floaters of a dense WEC array can yield significantly higher power production and should be considered at the early design stages.