This research work addresses the challenge of supplying desalination plants with electricity from waves. The vast majority of desalination plants are located in coastal areas, making wave energy a potential and viable cornerstone for the desalination sector. A series of performance indicators, such as freshwater production per sea covered area, are established and used in this study to evaluate different wave energy converters (WECs). Analyses of the performance of wave farms are undertaken. Some of the indicators are parameterized with the intention of extrapolating the results to other desalination plants, using the specific energy consumption of the desalination plant or the sea surface area covered by WECs. The study is developed for mid-range wave climates, comparing two zones with different sea conditions in order to establish correlations. The Canary Islands (Spain), where more than 600,000 m³ of desalinated water are produced each day, is the selected scenario. Results show that no correlation could be established between the wave resource and WEC output and confirm the need to simultaneously analyze the wave resource and the behavior of each technology in the selected marine area. It is also found that higher wave energy potential does not necessarily lead to higher energy production. Results also show that WECs can supply an important percentage of the desalination plant electricity demand and wave farm configurations have more similarities than single devices in terms of technologies.

这项研究工作解决了利用波浪发电向海水淡化厂供电的挑战。绝大多数海水淡化厂都位于沿海地区，这使得波浪能成为海水淡化行业潜在且可行的基石。本研究建立并使用了一系列性能指标，例如每个海域的淡水产量，以评估不同的波浪能转换器 (WEC)。对波浪发电场的性能进行了分析。一些指标被参数化，目的是将结果外推到其他海水淡化厂，使用海水淡化厂的特定能源消耗或 WEC 覆盖的海面面积。该研究是针对中波气候而开发的，通过比较具有不同海况的两个区域以建立相关性。每天生产³个淡化水，是选定的情景。结果表明，在波浪资源和 WEC 输出之间无法建立相关性，并确认需要同时分析所选海域的波浪资源和每种技术的行为。还发现更高的波浪能势并不一定导致更高的能量产生。结果还表明，WEC 可以提供海水淡化厂电力需求的重要百分比，并且波浪发电场配置在技术方面比单一设备具有更多相似性。