| Abstract |
The Performance Assessment of Wave and Tidal Array Systems (PerAWaT) project, launched in October 2009 with £8m of ETI investment. The project delivered validated, commercial software tools capable of significantly reducing the levels of uncertainty associated with predicting the energy yield of major wave and tidal stream energy arrays. It also produced information that will help reduce commercial risk of future large scale wave and tidal array developments.
This document describes how the results of discussions and numerical modelling have been combined to form a specification for the physical modelling of arrays of tidal energy converters (TECs) at coastal basin scale. The results of physical modelling at this scale will allow for comparison with the numerical models being developed, allowing an assessment of the impact of arrays of devices upon the coastal basin scale flow.
Physical testing is to be undertaken by HR Wallingford at the Coastal Research Facility (CRF). Two idealised tidal site geometries have been selected following a review of tidal energy sites in the UK, they being a channel and a headland. These will be recreated within a 20m x 9m working section in the CRF.
Numerical modelling has been undertaken to inform the site scale and geometry, layouts to be studied,the boundary conditions and to produce simulation results for comparison with the experimental data |
