The NSF Sustainable Energy pathways (SEP) Program, under the umbrella of the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) initiative, will support the research program of Prof. Brain Polagye and co-workers at the University of Washington to investigate amnd develop a sustainable energy pathway based on tidal energy. Tidal hydrokinetic energy is the energy in the currents associated with the rise and fall of ocean tides. Interest in tidal energy development is driven by three aspects of the resource: it is renewable, predictable, and concentrated. However, a renewable resource is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for sustainable power generation. At present, the tools to assess large-scale, sustainable utilization of tidal energy are underdeveloped, and a comprehensive synthesis of pilot project results has not been completed. The objective of this project is to improve the understanding of tidal energy systems and to develop tools that will enable a sustainable pathway for tidal energy. Sustainable, large-scale tidal energy development will need to balance the benefits of renewable power generation against environmental and societal costs. This balance can be, in part, informed by scenario analyses that scale up information gained from pilot projects. Currently, frameworks to implement effective scenario analysis are undermined by broad technical, environmental, and social uncertainties. This project will integrate fundamental research from energy engineering, ocean sciences, and social sciences to evaluate large-scale tidal energy sustainability. In doing so, the trade-offs between technological, environmental, and societal costs will be identified and quantified. Research will focus on high-priority knowledge gaps and apply the results to scenario-based analyses including technical ones: multi-turbine array performance; assimilation between oceanographic and detailed array models; environmental ones: turbine noise; fisheries interactions; energy removal at estuarine scale; and social ones: public values and perception; anticipatory governance.
The post-doctoral and graduate researchers engaged in this work are integral to developing an interdisciplinary workforce capable of extending the proposed framework to tidal energy applications and to other sustainability challenges. Their professional development will involve direct engagement in all facets of the research, and they will participate in the annual, international symposium hosted by the International Network for Offshore Renewable Energy.
While tidal energy development has been accelerated by adapting technologies from the wind and offshore oil and gas industries, technology convergence has been limited for the devices intended to harness the power in tidal currents. A wide range of competing design options and array layouts have been proposed for large-scale development. This breadth of approaches provides a window of opportunity for environmental and social information from early-stage projects to influence future technology convergence. Through iterative, scenario-based analysis this research will demonstrate that, once fundamental knowledge gaps are addressed, environmental and social information can be incorporated into engineering decisions to reduce the economic, environmental, and societal costs associated with large-scale tidal energy development. This has the potential to fundamentally alter the pathway towards technology convergence and public perceptions of marine renewable energy sustainability.
