IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/renene/v33y2008i11p2485-2490.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Limits to tidal current power

Author

Listed:
  • Garrett, Chris
  • Cummins, Patrick

Abstract

Estimating the extractable power of tidal currents in channels is a practical question that has received attention recently. Analysis has clearly shown that the power potential is not given by the flux of kinetic energy, as has been commonly assumed. A general formula for the maximum available power is reviewed, along with assessments of the reduction if only partial fences are used, as would be required for navigational and ecological reasons. In typical situations, the maximum power obtainable may be achieved with a surprisingly small number of turbines, especially if allowance is made for the flow reduction caused by drag on the supporting structures of turbines which reduces the maximum power available. Finally, the flow through tidal turbines is compared with the cooling water demands of nuclear reactors generating the same power.

Suggested Citation

  • Garrett, Chris & Cummins, Patrick, 2008. "Limits to tidal current power," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 2485-2490.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:33:y:2008:i:11:p:2485-2490
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2008.02.009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148108000396
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.renene.2008.02.009?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bryden, Ian G. & Couch, Scott J., 2007. "How much energy can be extracted from moving water with a free surface: A question of importance in the field of tidal current energy?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(11), pages 1961-1966.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lilia Flores Mateos & Michael Hartnett, 2020. "Hydrodynamic Effects of Tidal-Stream Power Extraction for Varying Turbine Operating Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-23, June.
    2. Myers, L.E. & Bahaj, A.S., 2012. "An experimental investigation simulating flow effects in first generation marine current energy converter arrays," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 28-36.
    3. Funke, S.W. & Farrell, P.E. & Piggott, M.D., 2014. "Tidal turbine array optimisation using the adjoint approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 658-673.
    4. Roc, Thomas & Conley, Daniel C. & Greaves, Deborah, 2013. "Methodology for tidal turbine representation in ocean circulation model," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 448-464.
    5. González-Gorbeña, Eduardo & Qassim, Raad Y. & Rosman, Paulo C.C., 2016. "Optimisation of hydrokinetic turbine array layouts via surrogate modelling," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 45-57.
    6. Hachmann, Christoph & Stallard, Tim & Stansby, Peter & Lin, Binliang, 2021. "Experimentally validated study of the impact of operating strategies on power efficiency of a turbine array in a bi-directional tidal channel," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 1408-1426.
    7. Pérez-Ortiz, Alberto & Borthwick, Alistair G.L. & McNaughton, James & Smith, Helen C.M. & Xiao, Qing, 2017. "Resource characterization of sites in the vicinity of an island near a landmass," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 265-276.
    8. Kim, Ki-Pyoung & Ahmed, M. Rafiuddin & Lee, Young-Ho, 2012. "Efficiency improvement of a tidal current turbine utilizing a larger area of channel," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 557-564.
    9. Kai-Wern Ng & Wei-Haur Lam & Khai-Ching Ng, 2013. "2002–2012: 10 Years of Research Progress in Horizontal-Axis Marine Current Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(3), pages 1-30, March.
    10. Rosli, R. & Norman, R. & Atlar, M., 2016. "Experimental investigations of the Hydro-Spinna turbine performance," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 1227-1234.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Tidal current power;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:33:y:2008:i:11:p:2485-2490. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/renewable-energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.