U.S.: Reference: DOE Introduces First-of-Its Kind Database for Tidal Energy Resources

From U.S. Dept. of Energy Announcement:

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology today introduced a new database highlighting the energy potential available in the United States from ocean tides. This online database is an important step towards providing information that can improve the performance, lower the costs, and accelerate the deployment of innovative water power technologies.

Georgia Tech, in partnership with DOE, has developed the first national database detailing the potential extractable energy from the Nation’s tidal streams – high velocity ocean currents created by the horizontal movement of tides. Tidal power devices can be deployed to convert the energy in tides to electricity.

Researchers at Georgia Tech Savannah used advanced regional ocean models to simulate tidal flows along the entire U.S. coastline. DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory validated the model’s accuracy and the resulting data are now publically available at the website developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology: www.tidalstreampower.gatech.edu.

The interactive database allows users to zoom and pan over maps of color-coded information on water depth, mean current speed, and mean kinetic power density for tidal resources along the coasts of the contiguous United States, Alaska, and Puerto Rico. Users can produce maps on depth and power density using the database’s geographic information system (GIS) tools. Additionally, users can select specific locations to build velocity and power density histograms, which are displayed as easy-to-read charts and graphs.

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