Tidal and Wave Power

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Tidal and Wave Power

Tidal power operates by building a barrier across a river estuary. The

tidal flow drives turbines to produce electricity. Europe's only tidal

power station is at Rance in Northern France. Some sites in the U.K

could be developed to provide tidal power but the drawback is that

these schemes affect the habitat of wildlife such as birds and fish

because they alter the tidal currents. Also, barrage will only provide

power for about 10 hours per day. Power for the other 14 hours must be

provided by other means.

Waves possess lots of energy. Experiments with various different

designs of generator have proved that waves can provide electricity.

However, there are problems in developing and building wave powered

generators which are both cheap and efficient, as they must be strong

enough to cope with storms while being light enough to work with small

waves.

If every reasonable project in the UK were to be exploited for tidal

power the yield could be over 50 kwh a year representing 20 per cent

of the electricity demand in Britain. About 90 per cent of this

potential is at eight large estuaries including Severn, Dee, Morecambe

bay, Solway, Humber and Wash

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A Barrage 16 kilometres long (which could be built in the Severn

Estuary) with 216 large turbines, could generate as much as 8640 MW

and supply up to 7% of electricity for England and Wales. It would be

extremely expensive to build though, costing around £8000million. It

would take seven years to close the barrage to produce first

electricity, and a further 2 years before full power output was

achieved.

The only major tidal power scheme operating anywhere in the world is

in the Rance estuary between Dinard and Saint Malo in France , where a

barrage with 240 MW of turbines was completed in 1966, as a pilot

scheme for a prospective larger barrage across the Mont Saint Michel

bay. After some difficulties with the turbines the Rance scheme, it

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