Abstract
Enabling Future Arrays in Tidal (EnFAIT) is an EU Horizon 2020 flagship tidal energy project. It aims to demonstrate the development, operation and decommissioning of the world’s largest tidal array (six turbines), over a five-year period, to prove a cost reduction pathway for tidal energy and confirm that it can be cost competitive with other forms of renewable energy. To determine the optimal site layout and spacing between turbines within a tidal array, it is essential to accurately characterise tidal turbine wakes and their effects. This paper presents a state-of-the-art review of tidal turbine wake modelling methods, with an overview of the relevant fundamental theories. Numerical and physical modelling research completed by both academia and industry are considered to provide an overview of the contemporary understanding in this area. The scalability of single device modelling techniques to an array situation is discussed, particularly with respect to wake interactions.
Highlights
THE need for clean and reliable energy sources is increasing rapidly, and renewable technologies with currently low exploitation levels must overcome key technological and financial challenges
Whilst this has been demonstrated via various modelling methods [27] [12], one initial study of wakes in tidal arrays showed no significant difference in centreline velocity deficit of two Actuator disks (AD) at streamwise separation of 5D and 8D [1]
There are a wide variety of approaches to modelling tidal turbine wake behaviour and wake interaction within an array
Summary
THE need for clean and reliable energy sources is increasing rapidly, and renewable technologies with currently low exploitation levels must overcome key technological and financial challenges. Understanding and predicting wake behaviour is required for array optimisation because upstream wake characteristics will influence the input conditions to downstream turbines in an array. Those conditions will affect the generated power and turbine loading. The topic of this paper is wake characterisation and array interaction modelling (AIM); the prior art includes several published works summarising research on hydrodynamic modelling for marine energy more generally [1]–[4]. A brief introduction to tidal turbine wake theory is given, followed by a review of numerical and physical modelling of individual turbine wakes, and an investigation into modelling of wakes within device arrays
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