Trends in tidal power development

Mechanical Engineering Department, College of Engineering, Prince Mohammad Bin Fahd University, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia

^* Corresponding author: a.a.boretti@gmail.com

Abstract

Tidal energy has been around for almost 2, 000 years, as the first Tide Mills date the Romans times. Tidal power generation then emerged in the 1960s, with the construction of the 240 MW La Rance power station, a still working example of good renewable energy initiative, permitting electricity production at very competitive costs since now more than 54 years. Unfortunately, apart from the construction in 2011 of a similar plant based on the tidal range technology, the 254 MW Sihwa Lake power station, almost nothing else happened in the real world for tidal energy, apart from very small or demonstration plants. While the future is certainly towards tidal streams/currents technologies rather than tidal range technologies, as tidal currents turbines may also be used for oceanic currents installations, these technologies are still in their infancy, as apart from their theoretical performance, every other aspect of a submerged power plant operation needs further developments.