Interactive Map U.S. Tidal Energy Resources

Georgia Institute of Technology in cooperation with the U.S. Energy Department released the interactive online database of U.S. Tidal Energy Resources..

Energy.gov blog:

Researchers at Georgia Tech's Savannah campus used the Regional Ocean Model to simulate tidal flows along the entire U.S. coastline, which is marked by thousands of streams, rivers and bays subject to daily tides. The Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory validated the model's accuracy and the resulting data are now publicly available.

Georgia Tech's 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 streams along America’s coastlines. The database is highly flexible -- users can produce maps of depth and power density and select specific locations to build velocity and power density histograms, which are displayed as easy-to-read charts and graphs.

Check it out: Interactive Map U.S. Tidal Energy Resources

Objectives of the project:

1. Utilize an advanced ocean circulation numerical model (ROMS) to predict tidal currents.

2. Validate the velocities and water levels predicted by the model with available data.

3. Compute the tidal harmonic constituents for the velocities and water levels.

4. Build a GIS database of the tidal constituents.

5. Develop GIS tools for dissemination of the data

- A filter based on depth requirements.

- Compute current velocity histograms based on the tidal constituents.

- Compute the available power density (W/m2) based on the velocity histograms.

- Compute the total available power within arrays based on turbine performance parameters.

6. Develop a web based interface for accessing the GIS database and using the GIS tools.