Preliminary assessment of wave energy use in an off-grid minor island desalination plant

Small islands are often characterized by water availability problems becoming critical in summer time during the touristic season. The current water supply systems rely on the shipping of water from the mainland, with relevant fall backs in terms of water price and CO2 emissions. On the other hand the recur to local desalination raises the other issue in minor islands: energy supply. In this respect, the use of renewable energy appears to be the most natural option to the power mix pending the adequate consideration of the environmental constraints. In minor islands, the high environmental quality could often results in more severe landscape conservation rules as such introducing limitations to the most common renewable energy based installations. To this end, this paper discusses the use of near-shore wave energy technologies as a solution to cope with low impact energy generation to the water demand of a typical island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the island of Ponza. The preliminary assessment focuses on the analysis of the impact on diesel fuel oil use and GHG emissions reduction.