Estimation of potential tidal energy along the West Coast of India

Abstract

Tidal energy is one of the clean and non-depleting renewable energy sources. In contrast to other clean sources, such as wind, solar, geothermal etc., tidal energy can be predicted for years ahead. Also, the medium, seawater, is more than 800 times denser than air and the astronomic nature of the underlying driving mechanism results in an essentially predictable resource, although subject to weather-related fluctuations. These features make it an important energy source for global power production in the near future. There are various types of tidal power plants across the world with varying tidal elevation. Also the method of conversion of the tidal energy into electrical energy is site specific. For example, we can adopt conventional method to extract energy in high tidal regions. But when it comes to low tidal regions like the southern India where tidal elevation measurements does not exceed 2.5m, there is a need of low flow turbines which can extract higher energy from lower head. An important factor that is responsible for the velocity of tidal stream is the tidal inlet dimensions. In this paper, an attempt has been made to identify the feasible locations for extraction of potential tidal energy along the Indian Coast. � 2018 World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.