2013 - University College Cork

APPRAISAL OF IRISH SEA SEABED IMAGING FOR
TIDAL ENERGY GENERATION (ISSITEG)
Research Centre/Department/School:
School of Biological, Earth & Environmental Sciences
Contact PI: Andy Wheeler (a.wheeler@ucc.ie)
Researchers: Boris Dorschel
Start Year: January 2012
End Year: December 2012
Funding Body: Geological Survey of Ireland
Funding: €30k
Research Projects Listing
The most reliable and predictable renewable energy source is tidal energy. This predictability makes
tidal energy an ideal source to supply the base load for a secure renewable energy mix. The technology
of tidal energy generation is however still at its infancy with only a few test sites worldwide including
Strangford Lough. The Irish government has included tidal energy in the Strategic Environmental
Assessment (SEA) of the Offshore Renewable Energy Development Plan (OREDP).
In the ORDEP the tidal energy potential was only assessed from a coarse 2-dimensional tidal model
with a 500 m cell resolution. The existing 2D model only indicates areas of enhanced tidal energy on
a country-wide base. It is insufficient to accurately assess local tidal resources of potential sites for
offshore energy extraction thus underestimating Ireland’s tidal energy potential. Furthermore, it does
not consider seabed topography, an important parameter for the distribution of tidal energy, and
only incorporates 2 directly measured tidal current data sets for the entire Irish foreshore area.
Based on the results from the Codling Deep test site, ISSITEG will developed a methodology to
identify and characterise sites of high tidal energy potential based on seabed topography, backscatter
data, sedimentary bedforms and particle size (a tidal energy potential fingerprint). In the
second phase of ISSITEG, this fingerprint will be used to assess the multibeam covered study area
for its tidal energy potential.
RESEARCH PROJECTS
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