Tapping tidal power

Engineers at Liverpool University claim that building estuary barrages in the north west could provide more than five per cent of the UK's electricity.

Researchers, working in collaboration with Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, examined ways to generate electricity from tidal sources of renewable energy in the Eastern Irish Sea. The study showed that four estuary barrages, across the Solway Firth, Morecambe Bay and the Mersey and Dee estuaries, could be capable of meeting approximately half of the north-west region’s electricity needs.

Funded by the Northwest Regional Development Agency, the team investigated different types of tidal power, including barrages – which run from one bank of an estuary to another and guide water flow through sluices and turbines – using advanced two-dimensional computational modelling.

The team found that the most effective mode of generating electricity was ‘ebb generation’, which involves collecting water as the tide comes in and releasing the water back through turbines once the tide has gone out.