Investigating the performance of the IEC standard for tidal energy resource assessment in the Bay of Fundy, Canada
Geophysics/Hydrodynamics: Andrew Cornett, Julien Cousineau, Mathieu Toupin (2016/04)
This paper summarizes the results of new research wherein the methods prescribed in the new IEC Technical Specification are applied to assess the considerable tidal energy resources available in Minas Passage, in the upper Bay of Fundy, in eastern Canada. The accuracy of the resource assessments derived from numerical simulations is compared to equivalent resource assessments derived from velocity measurements in five different locations. A series of sensitivity analyses are conducted to investigate some important sources of error and uncertainty impacting the precision of the various resource assessments obtained following the IEC methodologies. Finally, the effects of deploying arrays of in‐stream turbines to extract energy from the tidal flows in Minas Passage are modeled and assessed.