Tidal Current Power Resources and Influence of Sea-Level Rise in the Coastal Waters of Kinmen Island, Taiwan

Wei-Bo Chen, Hongey Chen, Lee-Yaw Lin and Yi-Chiang Yu
Additional contact information
Wei-Bo Chen: National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, New Taipei City 23143, Taiwan
Hongey Chen: National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, New Taipei City 23143, Taiwan
Lee-Yaw Lin: National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, New Taipei City 23143, Taiwan
Yi-Chiang Yu: National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction, New Taipei City 23143, Taiwan

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: The tidal current power (TCP) resource, the impact of TCP extraction on hydrodynamics and the influence of sea-level rise (SLR) on TCP output in the coastal waters of Kinmen Island (Taiwan) are investigated using a state-of-the-art unstructured-grid depth-integrated numerical model. The model was driven by eight tidal constituents extracted from a global tidal prediction model and verified with time series of measured data for tide level and depth-averaged current. The simulations showed reasonable agreement with the observations; the skill index was in the excellent (0.71–0.93) range with regard to simulating tide level and currents. Model predictions indicated that the channel between Kinmen and Lieyu serves as an appropriate site for deploying the tidal turbines because of its higher tidal current and deeper water depth. The bottom friction approach was utilized to compute the average TCP over a spring-neap cycle (i.e., 15 days). Mean TCP reached its maximum to 45.51 kW for a coverage area of 0.036 km 2 when an additional turbine friction coefficient ( C t ) increased to 0.08, and a cut-in speed of 0.5 m/s was used. The annual TCP output was estimated to be 1.08 MW. The impact of TCP extraction on the change in current is significant, with a maximum reduction rate of instant current exceeding 60%, and the extent of influence for the average current is 1.26 km in length and 0.30 km in width for the ?0.05 m/s contour line. However, the impact of TCP extraction on the change in tide level is insignificant; the maximum change in amplitude is only 0.73 cm for the K 2 tide. The influence of SLR on the TCP output in Kinmen waters was also estimated. Modeling assessments showed that due to SLR produces faster tidal current, the annual TCP output increased to 1.52 MW, 2.01 MW, 2.48 MW and 2.97 MW under the same cut-in speed and coverage area conditions when SLR 0.25 m, SLR 0.5 m, SLR 0.75 m and SLR 1.0 m were imposed on the model.

Keywords: tidal current power; bottom friction approach; depth-integrated numerical model; sea-level rise; Kinmen Island (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: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/5/652/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/5/652/ (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:10:y:2017:i:5:p:652-:d:98004

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 ().