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Sustainability 2016, 8, 1300 18 of 21

Tuscany and Liguria sites. This demonstrates that the studied WECs technologies convert a higher
percentage of the potential wave energy when installed in the Italian sites than in the oceanic sites.
In fact, the oceanic energy potential is up to 38-times greater than the potentials in the studied Italian
areas but the power output, from the most suited WEC technology, is no more than nine times greater.
These differences lead to the conclusion that, although the oceanic potentials can be much higher than
the Mediterranean potentials, the tested WECs are not able to convert a large part of the oceanic energy.
In other words, the harvesting of the wave energy in the Mediterranean Sea is facilitated by the fact
that the energy potential is related to wave conditions that can be more efficiently harvested by the
state of the art technologies.
Considering that the performance assessment of the WECs in Italian sites has shown lower
capacity factors but higher capture widths in comparison to values in oceanic sites it is believed that
if these technologies are properly downscaled for the Italian sites the values of their power output
might be close to the values in the oceanic sites. This assumption seems to be confirmed by the work
of Bozzi et al. [38].

Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank IFREMER for having delivered the used data (Fabrice Lecornu)
and DHI-Italia for having supplied the software MIKE21 (Andrea Pedroncini). The support of the Tuscany Region
Administration that cofounded the post PhD research grant for V. Vannucchi under the project FLORENS POR
CRO FSE 2007–2013 is gratefully acknowledged. This study has been conducted in the framework of the projects:
MARINET EU-FP7 under the LABIMA-UNIFI unit and NEMO-University of Florence, headed by L. Cappietti.
Author Contributions: Lorenzo Cappietti wrote and headed the research project, FLORENS-POR CRO FSE
2007–2013 Regione Toscana, the results of which are disseminated by the present paper. Valentina Vannucchi acted
as the post-doctoral research fellow of the cited project, applying the numerical modelling and, conducting the
data analysis as planned in the project work packages. Both authors drafted and revised the manuscript together.
Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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