Tidal resource and environmental effects of energy extraction in the Pentland Firth: sensitivity to array layouts and turbulence changes
The Pentland Firth (UK) is a channel between Scotland’s mainland and the Orkney Islands which has high-speed currents. This high tidal stream resource has encouraged the development of a tidal stream energy sector in Scotland, motivated to develop commercial scale tidal farms.
It is important to consider how such developments may affect physical processes in the region, and how the layout of arrays could influence this.
Tidal dynamics in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters (PFOW) have been reproduced by a high spatial resolution,