Towards a Tidal Farm in Banks Strait, Tasmania: Influence of Tidal Array on Hydrodynamics

Christelle Auguste, Philip Marsh, Jean-Roch Nader, Remo Cossu and Irene Penesis
Additional contact information
Christelle Auguste: Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia
Philip Marsh: Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia
Jean-Roch Nader: Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia
Remo Cossu: School of Civil Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Irene Penesis: Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania, Launceston, TAS 7250, Australia

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-22

Abstract: The development of tidal energy in Australia is still a challenge with few studies performed on the characterisation of the resource, due to the difficulty to acquire data and uncertainties about the influence of this anthropogenic activity on the marine environment. Changes in flow could lead to alterations in sediment transport and have further influence on the marine habitat. A case study in a promising area, Banks Strait (Australia), was created using high resolution 2D and 3D models validated against in situ data to investigate changes to hydrodynamic conditions with two scenarios of tidal farms (100 and 300 turbines). Comparison between 2D and 3D is performed to find the best compromise between model accuracy and computational time for preliminary assessment. Changes to current speed and bed shear stress over a 35 day period were found to be localised around the tidal farms and did not extent more than 7 km from the farm (300 turbines) for both 2D and 3D. The results showed that for near field and far field, 2D models are sufficient to give a first approximation of the hydrodynamic influence of tidal farm deployment on its environment.

Keywords: tidal energy; hydrodynamic model; tidal farm; environmental impact assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5326/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5326/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:20:p:5326-:d:427243

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().