As the wave energy industry grows and begins to attract significant commercial investment, it is important that the industry begins to use generally accepted methods and procedures in order to increase industry and investor confidence. In response, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) set up a Technical Committee charged with developing standards for the marine renewable energy sector (IEC/TC114). Subsequently, as one of its initial steps, the Committee created a project to develop a Technical Specification for the assessment and characterisation of wave energy resources. A Project Team including international experts from industry and academia with experience covering oceanography, engineering and wave energy technologies has been working towards this goal for the past two years. Although it is expected that this Technical Specification (TS) will continue to evolve as understanding of the wave energy resource and its relationship with Wave Energy Converters (WECs) develops, this paper details the main elements of the proposed wave energy Resource Assessment TS and explains the reasoning behind the specified methods and procedures. In addition, this TS’s relationship with another TS specifying methods for assessing the Power Performance of WECs is also explained and illustrated using an example.
