Assessment of Tidal Current Energy Resources and its Impact on Surrounding in the Southeast Waters of Zhaitang Island, China

The sea area to the southeast of Zhaitang Island, located in the east coast of Yellow Sea, China is a potential site for exploiting tidal current energy. Before these resources were developed effectively, assessment on extractable tidal current energy resources and its impact on surrounding are needed. In this paper, a 3D hydrodynamic model of the waters of Zhaitang Island, calibrated and successfully verified with continuous insitu measured data, was built by Delft 3D-Flow, and the impact to the waters of energy extracted by the turbine array was emulated by adding a momentum loss term in the equations of the model. On this basis, the resource reserve of tidal current energy and its impact on surrounding in the southeast waters of Zhaitang Island could be assessed. The results showed that the power output of the turbine array was expected to reach 691,619kWh in a tidal periodicity (15 days). In addition, water level around the waters was not much influenced by turbine array, albeit large influence area. However, the influence on tidal velocity was relatively clear, and the maximum drop of flow velocity could reach 45cm/s.