Very little can yet be known about the availability of MEC devices and farms; however, there are clear indicators from the on-shore and off-shore wind industries as to how availability is likely to develop. It is clear that MEC developers need to pay special attention to strategies to reduce installation costs and O&M costs. The next chapter will show that there are choices for MEC farm developers to do this, and these are possible because, unlike an off-shore WT, a MEC device could be moored on location and removed for maintenance. But these involve radical decisions during the development.

Chapter Contents:

• 7.1 Introduction and more terminology
• 7.2 Previous work
• 7.3 Cost of installation
• 7.4 Cost of energy
• 7.5 O& M costs
• 7.6 Effect of reliability, availability and maintenance on CoE
• 7.7 Summary

Inspec keywords: wave power plants; marine power systems; power convertors

Other keywords: onshore wind industry; MEC devices; MEC farms; O&M cost reduction; marine energy converter; offshore WT; offshore wind industry; installation cost reduction; marine energy cost

Subjects: Wave power; Power convertors and power supplies to apparatus