Tidal Power

The World Offshore Renewable Energy Report 2002-2007, released by the DTI, suggests that while 3000GW of tidal energy is estimated to be available, less than 3% is located in areas suitable for power generation. Tidal current energy is therefore very site specific, optimised only where tidal range is amplified by factors such as shelving of the sea bottom, funnelling in estuaries and reflections by large peninsulas. However, tidal power has the distinct advantage of being highly predictable compared with some other forms of renewable energy which makes tidal energy development an attractive resource option.

The physical phenomena known as “the tides” is the periodic motion of the waters of the sea caused by varying gravitational pulls of the moon and the sun upon different parts of the earth as it rotates.

Tide and tidal currents are different aspects of the same phenomena described above. The relationships between then are not simple in nature , nor is it everywhere the same.The word tide to be used to correctly such be in reference to the rise and fall of the of the water, and the word tidal current for the horizontal flow. The tide therefore rises and falls while the current ebbs and floods. In it’s rise and fall, the tideis accompanied by a periodic horizontal movement of the water called the Tidal Current.

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Because of the greater proximity of the moon, tides on earth follow the lunar cycle, and their amplitude varies according to the relative positions of the earth, moon and sun. The “pull” of the sun and the moon each on it’s own, minutely counteract earth’s gravity and bulges are created in the oceans, which rise in a direction opposite to, but facing that of , the resultant force of the pulls of the sun and the moon. The bulges in the sea are caused by the centrifugal force acting in a direction away from the earth-moon axis of rotation. The closer the sun and moon pull in the same direction, the stronger the resulting pull.