The development of localised marine power in the coastal area

초록

The ocean is a convenient and reliable source of electricity generation, especially for coastal cities. Marine energy has received much attention globally and is being developed as a viable source of renewable energy. While high tidal and fast water current would yield large energy generation, not all locations possess these advantages. With different limitations for specific site locations, micro-scale marine turbine may be suitable for areas with low tidal velocity. This chapter describes the development process for harvesting marine energy for local small-scale usage. Arup and Inha University of Korea partnered with Sino Group and City University of Hong Kong to develop and test a micro-scale marine turbine near Hong Kong's west coast in Tuen Mun. The development included local resource assessment with verification through site survey, micro-scale turbine design, lab demonstration, manufacturing, and onsite testing and validation by correlating the simulation results with actual power generation data. The first stage was to understand the available resource at a location, through creating a numerical estimation at the meso level and subsequently at the micro level. With the site parameters determined, turbine design and selection could be made. Since not that many micro-scale turbine designs are currently available commercially, this project decided to go through a turbine design and manufacturing process as well. Lastly, because the numerical prediction of the turbine's performance at the selected location showed the feasibility of capturing marine energy, a prototype turbine was deployed and installed at the location to test the performance. The testing results validated the numerical simulation results. These completed stages demonstrated the feasibility of using micro-scale marine turbine as part of a coastline urban development. © 2018 Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.