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The cumulative impact of tidal stream turbine arrays on sediment transport in the Pentland Firth

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  • Fairley, I.
  • Masters, I.
  • Karunarathna, H.

Abstract

This contribution investigates the impact of the deployment of tidal stream turbine arrays on sediment dynamics and seabed morphology in the Pentland Firth, Scotland. The Pentland Firth is arguably the premier tidal stream site in the world and engineering developments are progressing rapidly. Therefore understanding and minimising impacts is vital to ensure the successful development of this nascent industry. Here a 3 dimensional coupled hydrodynamic and sediment transport numerical model is used to investigate the impact on sediment transport and morphodynamics of tidal stream arrays. The aim of the work presented here is twofold: firstly to provide prediction of the changes caused by multiple tidal stream turbine array developments to some of the unique sandy seabed environments in the Pentland Firth and secondly as a case study to determine the relationship between impacts of individual tidal stream farms and cumulative impacts of multiple farms. Due to connectivity in tidal flow it has been hypothesized that the cumulative impact of multiple arrays on sediment dynamics might be non-linear. This work suggests that, for the Pentland Firth, this is not the case: the cumulative impact of the 4 currently proposed arrays in the area is equal to the sum of the impacts of the individual arrays. Additionally, array implementation only has minimal effect on the baseline morphodynamics of the large sandbanks in the region, smaller more local sandbanks were not considered. These two results are extremely positive for tidal stream developers in the region since it removes the burden of assessing cumulative impact from individual developers and suggests that impacts to sub-sea morphodynamics is insignificant and hence is unlikely to be an impediment to development in the Pentland Firth with the currently proposed levels of extraction.

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  • Fairley, I. & Masters, I. & Karunarathna, H., 2015. "The cumulative impact of tidal stream turbine arrays on sediment transport in the Pentland Firth," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 755-769.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:renene:v:80:y:2015:i:c:p:755-769
    DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2015.03.004
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    Cited by:

    1. Ian Masters & Alison Williams & T. Nick Croft & Michael Togneri & Matt Edmunds & Enayatollah Zangiabadi & Iain Fairley & Harshinie Karunarathna, 2015. "A Comparison of Numerical Modelling Techniques for Tidal Stream Turbine Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-21, July.
    2. Gorle, J.M.R. & Chatellier, L. & Pons, F. & Ba, M., 2019. "Modulated circulation control around the blades of a vertical axis hydrokinetic turbine for flow control and improved performance," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 363-377.
    3. Nash, S. & Phoenix, A., 2017. "A review of the current understanding of the hydro-environmental impacts of energy removal by tidal turbines," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 648-662.
    4. Christelle Auguste & Philip Marsh & Jean-Roch Nader & Remo Cossu & Irene Penesis, 2020. "Towards a Tidal Farm in Banks Strait, Tasmania: Influence of Tidal Array on Hydrodynamics," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(20), pages 1-22, October.
    5. Zhang, Yidan & Shek, Jonathan K.H. & Mueller, Markus A., 2023. "Controller design for a tidal turbine array, considering both power and loads aspects," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    6. Auguste, Christelle & Nader, Jean-Roch & Marsh, Philip & Cossu, Remo & Penesis, Irene, 2021. "Variability of sediment processes around a tidal farm in a theoretical channel," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 606-620.
    7. Elie, B. & Oger, G. & Guillerm, P.-E. & Alessandrini, B., 2017. "Simulation of horizontal axis tidal turbine wakes using a Weakly-Compressible Cartesian Hydrodynamic solver with local mesh refinement," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 336-354.
    8. Rtimi, Rajae & Sottolichio, Aldo & Tassi, Pablo, 2022. "The Rance tidal power station: Toward a better understanding of sediment dynamics in response to power generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(P1), pages 323-343.
    9. Deng, Guizhong & Zhang, Zhaoru & Li, Ye & Liu, Hailong & Xu, Wentao & Pan, Yulin, 2020. "Prospective of development of large-scale tidal current turbine array: An example numerical investigation of Zhejiang, China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    10. Edmunds, Matt & Williams, Alison J. & Masters, Ian & Banerjee, Arindam & VanZwieten, James H., 2020. "A spatially nonlinear generalised actuator disk model for the simulation of horizontal axis wind and tidal turbines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 194(C).
    11. Auguste, Christelle & Nader, Jean-Roch & Marsh, Philip & Penesis, Irene & Cossu, Remo, 2022. "Modelling the influence of Tidal Energy Converters on sediment dynamics in Banks Strait, Tasmania," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 1105-1119.
    12. Avdis, Alexandros & Candy, Adam S. & Hill, Jon & Kramer, Stephan C. & Piggott, Matthew D., 2018. "Efficient unstructured mesh generation for marine renewable energy applications," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 116(PA), pages 842-856.
    13. Kresning, Boma & Hashemi, M. Reza & Neill, Simon P. & Green, J. A. Mattias & Xue, Huijie, 2019. "The impacts of tidal energy development and sea-level rise in the Gulf of Maine," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    14. Goward Brown, Alice J. & Neill, Simon P. & Lewis, Matthew J., 2017. "Tidal energy extraction in three-dimensional ocean models," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(PA), pages 244-257.
    15. Shao, Zhuxiao & Gao, Huijun & Liang, Bingchen & Lee, Dongyoung, 2022. "Potential, trend and economic assessments of global wave power," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 1087-1102.
    16. de Fockert, Anton & Bijlsma, Arnout C. & O'Mahoney, Tom S.D. & Verbruggen, Wilbert & Scheijgrond, Peter C. & Wang, Zheng B., 2023. "Assessment of the impact of tidal power extraction from the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier through the evaluation of a pilot plant," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 109-120.
    17. Fairley, I. & Karunarathna, H. & Masters, I., 2018. "The influence of waves on morphodynamic impacts of energy extraction at a tidal stream turbine site in the Pentland Firth," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 630-647.
    18. Musa, Mirko & Hill, Craig & Guala, Michele, 2019. "Interaction between hydrokinetic turbine wakes and sediment dynamics: array performance and geomorphic effects under different siting strategies and sediment transport conditions," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 738-753.
    19. Philip A. Gillibrand & Roy A. Walters & Jason McIlvenny, 2016. "Numerical Simulations of the Effects of a Tidal Turbine Array on Near-Bed Velocity and Local Bed Shear Stress," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(10), pages 1-22, October.
    20. Soto-Rivas, Karina & Richter, David & Escauriaza, Cristian, 2022. "Flow effects of finite-sized tidal turbine arrays in the Chacao Channel, Southern Chile," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 195(C), pages 637-647.
    21. De Dominicis, Michela & O'Hara Murray, Rory & Wolf, Judith, 2017. "Multi-scale ocean response to a large tidal stream turbine array," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(PB), pages 1160-1179.

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