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SWAN model development at WCWI continues to push forward ! After completing our detailed initial wave energy resource assessment work with our Phase 1 SWAN model, we began creating a much larger grid to cover all of the West Coast of Vancouver Island and most of the Central Coast (Dubbed the “Nomad grid” within WCWI). As shown in the images, this grid is huge and is going allow us unprecedented ability to characterise the wave energy resource in British Columbia.

A couple stats about our new model:

• The Nomad SWAN grid is composed of over 56,000 separate node elements.  The node density was determined by dependence on water depth (shallower water results in more nodes) and proximity to areas of interest identified in the previous SWAN model.
• The largest distance between two grid points is approximately 70 km (along the offshore boundary), whereas the smallest is approximately 100 meters.
• The North Western buoy (Middle Nomad Buoy) is 542 km from the north coast of Vancouver Island.
• The grid encompasses an area of 410 000 square km (726 km X by 564 km).
• The grid uses data from 7 wave measurement buoys (shown in image) for boundary condition input data, while data from WCWI buoys closer to Vancouver Island will be used to validate the computer model results.
• The Nomad grid covers approximately 1500 km of Pacific coastline at the relevant data scales.

Feel free to get in touch for additional information or if you have any questions about our new Nomad SWAN model grid.