Author(s): Nguyen Chien; Connor Jordan; Emils Brazovskis And Athanasios Angeloudis

Linked Author(s):

Keywords: Hydrodynamics; Modelling; Tidal energy; Turbines; Pentland Firth

Abstract: Tidal stream turbines are an emerging technology that exploits the hydrokinetic potential of tidal current flows where feasible. While turbines affect hydrodynamics locally, the cumulative array footprint is significant to the broader coastal ocean. Numerical modelling can simulate the spatial distribution of hydrodynamic characteristics, thus helping quantify the impacts of an array, not only in the vicinity of those turbines but also far field. A two-dimensional finite element model, Thetis, is applied to simulate the impact of a prospective tidal array for the Inner Sound of the Pentland Firth (PF), Scotland. The model is validated against tidal level data measured at Wick and velocity data collected by ADCP. This case study serves to support the design of an operational system for monitoring tidal stream energy. Unlike previous works that evaluated the impacts via either maximum or mean flow velocity difference and quantified as percentage of extractable energy, we want to consider the temporal variability of array effects and reframe the impacts to near real-time. Numerical configuration can be significantly influential, and thus we test both “continuous” and “discrete” array representations on a coarse mesh and refined mesh, respectively, and evaluate the difference in channel flux profiles over ebb/flood periods. In this way, we can indicate the impacts on local, array, as well as regional scales, as predicted by coastal ocean modelling assessment at different levels of fidelity.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.64697/978-90-835589-7-4_41WC-P1878-cd

Year: 2025