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.
Highlights
The development of tidal industry has made significant progress over the last decades: numerous tidal projects are under way, examples include development in United Kingdom (PentlandFirth, Shetland, Orkney), in France (Ushant, Aldernay Race) and in China (Zhoustan Archipelago) [1].There have been considerable advances in numerical models in the recent years, to assess the influence of tidal farms on the environment principally in 2D [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of two tidal farms on physical parameters in Banks Strait using high-resolution 2D and 3D hydrodynamic ocean models
Similar to previous studies where the strongest currents were found in the middle of the channel south of Clarke Island [18], the 3D model results reveal mean current speeds of 1.2 m/s and maximum speeds of 2.5 m/s located at (596878/−4498311 UTM 55) for the period of 22/03/2018 to 26/04/2018
Summary
The development of tidal industry has made significant progress over the last decades: numerous tidal projects are under way, examples include development in United Kingdom (PentlandFirth, Shetland, Orkney), in France (Ushant, Aldernay Race) and in China (Zhoustan Archipelago) [1].There have been considerable advances in numerical models in the recent years, to assess the influence of tidal farms on the environment principally in 2D [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. The objectives for 2030 for Australia (reducing CO2 emissions to 26–28% below 2005 levels) and Tasmania’s plan to become 200% in renewables by 2040 are a major challenge. To meet these obligations, the Australian government is considering to speed up the deployment of ocean energy, looking towards blue economy projects to reduce fossil fuels reliance. Further high resolution projects are required to perform a detailed site assessments in order to evaluate the viable production, environmental influence of Australia’s tidal resource and tidal farm development
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