Flow field impact assessment of a tidal farm in the Putuo-Hulu Channel

Abstract Waters surrounding Zhoushan Archipelago have the most abundant tidal current energy in China, which makes it a promising site for tidal farm construction in the future. Before deploying tidal current turbines, the potential environmental impacts on surrounding waters must be evaluated. In this work, we focus on the flow field impact assessment of an assumed tidal farm installed in Zhoushan Putuo-Hulu Channel. First, in order to evaluate the tidal characteristics there, a 2-month ADCP campaign is carried out, and a 3-D hydrodynamic model is established and validated with the in-situ measurements. Additionally, tidal current velocity and water depth as well as flow heading asymmetry information are used to evaluate the tidal stream exploitability within this channel. Second, a tidal farm consisting of 115 turbines is planned and assumed to be deployed throughout this channel. Blade element momentum method is used to numerically characterize the flow-turbine interactions, and then the spatial-temporal flow field variations caused by the assumed tidal farm are evaluated. It can be seen from the results that the peak flow speed reduction produced by the tidal farm could be over 0.5 m/s within the wake zones, while the flow velocity increment along two islands could reach 0.6 m/s. In particular, a flow speed phase shift phenomenon can be observed. Besides, the water level experiences a small overall rise, and the difference compared with the reference is within ± 3.0 cm. Moreover, the seabed shear stress within the wake zones could drop by 65%, while the areas along the two islands might see over 100% increase, indicating the risk of sediment deposition and coastal erosion.