ABP Marine Environmental Research Ltd (ABPmer) has released a further freely available tidal layer as part of a strategy to add value to the Atlas of UK Marine Renewable Resources. This new layer represents the percentage of time for which a current speed of 1m/s is exceeded over the course of a typical year.
Typically, developers look for sites based on an indicator of flows greater than 2m/s on the peak of a mean spring tide, however this expression offers little insight to how often the tide would provide strong flows. In recognising the continued needs for tidal developers for a better understanding of the tidal resource, ABPmer has developed a new metric for the Marine Renewable Atlas which considers the percentage of time through a year when tidal flows are greater than 1m/s. The 1m/s threshold has been chosen as tidal energy converts (TECs) often have a minimum cut-in speed for power generation around this value. Other threshold values can also be considered and further information of this type is planned.
Bill Cooper, Managing Director ABPmer said “ We are delighted to add to the Marine Renewables Atlas and be able to increase the description of the tidal resource in this manner and we look forward to including further information of this type shortly.
“ We will maintain our commitment to share such information as it becomes available via our Renewables Channel on ABPmer WEBvision. By hosting the Atlas of Marine Renewable Resources on this platform, users can interrogate maps describing the distribution of marine energy resources across the UK continental shelf as well as the ABPmer generated regional descriptions of areas of strategic interest for both wave and tides .”
ABPmer announced a new phase in the dissemination of marine renewable resource mapping tools for wind, wave and tidal developers with the switching on of the Renewables Channel in WEBvision, their online spatial information sharing platform in June this year.
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Source: abpmer, August 02, 2011;