TIGER Research Paper: Study of the spatial variability of the flow characteristics for tidal energy by LES Approaches
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S.S. GUILLOU, L. JÉGO, Ph. MERCIER, A. BOURGOIN, J. THIÉBOT
Abstract
Faced with the announced shortage of fossil fuels and the need to reduce our dependence on these energies, the use of energy from the seas becomes of interest. Among these, there is the energy of tidal currents captured by tidal turbines. The installation of tidal turbines in areas of interest requires to receive data on speeds and turbulence. Turbulence at these sites is generally high (Togneri. 2016) and can have an impact on the turbines in terms of production or fatigue (Blackmore, 2016). The most immediate approach is to make measurements with ADCPs (Thiébaut et al, 2020 a). However, this method, if it gives very good indicators (Thiébaut et al., 2020 b, c), is heavy, expensive and sometimes complicated to implement especially in area of rapid variation in seabed morphology. In that context, high fidelity numerical simulation should help to improve the flow knowledge by providing an estimation of the flow characteristics in the require area. Such an approach has been applied by developing a local LES model (mesh size of 0.25m) capable of doing simulation on a duration of 20 minutes (Mercier et al, 2020) and regional one (horizontal mesh size of 3m) capable of doing simulation for few tidal cycles (Bourgoin et al., 2020, Guillou et al., 2021). That work began during the ANR/ITE THYMOTE project is continuing in the framework of the INTERREG FCE TIGER (Tidal Stream Industry EnerGisER) project. The aim of this last project is to reduce the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). The purpose of the communication is to provide an overview of the LES simulations realised at local and regional in the project TIGER on two French sites (Raz Blanchard and Paimpol Bréhat) to characterize the flow in very complex tidal stream areas.
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