JOINT EVALUATION OF THE FUTURE WAVE AND WIND ENERGY CLOSE TO BULGARIA AND ROMANIA COASTLINES.

The importance of this study is to underline the fact that the wind energy potential in the western part of the Black Sea basin can be considered significant, while the wave energy is lower in comparison with oceans. However, in winter time when energy consumption in Bulgaria and Romania is high, the wave energy presents the highest values. The aim of this research paper is to draw a comprehensive picture regarding the wave and wind energy near Bulgaria and Romania coastlines. More precisely, six locations were studied. Regarding the geographical location, the studied points are located in the range 42°N to 45.2°N and 27°E to 30°E as follows: three points are near to the Bulgaria’s coastline and the other three close to Romania’s coastline. In this study, the wind conditions were analyzed at 10-meter height. The data for the wind analysis were provided by the Regional Climate Model (RCM) from Euro-Cordex database (EUR-11) and covers three intervals. All intervals cover 30-year of data as follows: Historical dataset (01 January 1976 to 31 December 2005), near future RCP8.5 scenario (01 January 2021 to 31 December 2050) and future RCP8.5 scenario (01 January 2071 to 31 December 2100). The wave analysis was conducted on the same intervals but using data coming from SWAN model. Finally, by analyzing the resulted coming from this joint evaluation it can be concluded that the presented analysis provides a more comprehensive picture regarding the future wind and wave energy resources in the coastal environment of Bulgaria and Romania, compared with historical period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]