Turbulence changes due to a tidal stream turbine operation in the Pentland Firth (Scotland, UK)

The high tidal stream resource in the Pentland Firth (Scotland, UK) has encouraged the development of commercial scale tidal farms. This work is a modelling study primarily focused on how the layout of arrays determines the extractable power and may affect physical processes in the region. Furthermore, the study provides information about submarine turbine maintenance. Tidal dynamics in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters (PFOW) have been reproduced by a three-dimensional FVCOM model implementation. The tidal stream turbines were represented in the model as sub grid scale objects by using a momentum sink approach. It has been explored how different turbine location, number and spacing can allow achieving very different amount of power resource, as well as degree of change to flow velocities. It has also been verified that turbulence changes can lead to an increase in bottom currents in the vicinity of the tidal turbines.