Multi-scale ocean response to a large tidal stream turbine array

De Dominicis, M. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0544-7939; O'Hara Murray, R.; Wolf, J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4129-8221. 2017 Multi-scale ocean response to a large tidal stream turbine array. Renewable Energy, 114 (B). 1160-1179. 10.1016/j.renene.2017.07.058

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Text © 2017 Elsevier B.V. This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Renewable Energy. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was/will be published in Renewable Energy (doi:10.1016/j.renene.2017.07.058) dedominicis_et_al_proofs_pagination_RENE_9033.pdf - Accepted Version Restricted to NORA staff only Download (4MB)

Abstract/Summary

The tidal stream energy sector is now at the stage of deploying the world's first pre-commercial arrays of multiple turbines. It is time to study the environmental effects of much larger full-size arrays, to scale and site them appropriately. A theoretical array of tidal stream turbines was designed for the Pentland Firth (UK), a strait between Scotland and the Orkney Islands, which has very fast tidal currents. The practical power resource of a large array spanning the Pentland Firth was estimated to be 1.64 GW on average. The ocean response to this amount of energy extraction was simulated by an unstructured grid three-dimensional FVCOM (Finite Volume Community Ocean Model) and analysed on both short-term and seasonal timescales. Tidal elevation mainly increases upstream of the tidal array, while a decrease is observed downstream, along the UK East Coast. Tidal and residual flows are also affected: they can slow down due to the turbines action or speed up due to flow diversion and blockage processes, on both a local and regional scale. The strongest signal in tidal velocities is an overall reduction, which can in turn decrease the energy of tidal mixing and perturb the seasonal stratification on the NW European Shelf.

Item Type:	Publication - Article
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):	10.1016/j.renene.2017.07.058
ISSN:	09601481
Additional Keywords:	Tidal stream energy; Marine renewable energy; Tidal stream turbine array; Pentland Firth; North West European Shelf; FVCOM
Date made live:	24 Jul 2017 14:15 +0 (UTC)
URI:	https://nora.nerc.ac.uk/id/eprint/517370

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