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Eleanor Denny
,1
Department of Economics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 19 August 2008
Accepted 12 January 2009
Available online 6 March 2009
Keywords:
Tidal energy
Renewable generation
Climate policy
a b s t r a c t
Concern over global climate change has led policy makers to accept the importance of reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. This in turn has led to a large growth in clean renewable generation for
electricity production. Much emphasis has been on wind generation as it is among the most advanced
forms of renewable generation, however, its variable and relatively unpredictable nature result in
increased challenges for electricity system operators. Tidal generation on the other hand is almost
perfectly forecastable and as such may be a viable alternative to wind generation. This paper calculates
the break-even capital cost for tidal generation on a real electricity system. An electricity market model
is used to determine the impact of tidal generation on the operating schedules of the conventional units
on the system and on the resulting cycling costs, emissions and fuel savings. It is found that for tidal
generation to produce positive net benets for the case study, the capital costs would have to be less
than h510,000 per MW installed which is currently an unrealistically low capital cost. Thus, it is
concluded that tidal generation is not a viable option for the case system at the present time.
& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Due to increasing concern over global climate change, many
policy makers worldwide have accepted the importance of
reducing greenhouse gas emissions, in particular from the
electricity industry. As a result, there has been an international
movement in the promotion of policy mechanisms for the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and in the promotion of
clean renewable technologies for electricity generation.
Many types of renewable generation, such as solar, wind, tidal
and wave generation, exhibit variable output, in other words, the
output of these units depend upon weather conditions that cannot
be controlled by the operator of the generator. For example, the
amount of electricity generated by a wind turbine uctuates as
wind speed changes and that of a photovoltaic array with the
intensity of sunlight. Thus, the control of these generators is
limited as operators can only reduce their potential output.
As well as being variable, many forms of renewable generation
also face a challenge of being relatively unpredictable. Since the
underlying resource cannot be directly controlled, the renewable
generation is high when conditions are favourable and low when
unfavourable. Thus, forecasts of weather conditions are crucial
when examining renewable generation sources. When signicant
penetrations of renewable generation are connected to an
electricity network, it can result in a requirement to alter the
operation of the system to accommodate the variability of these
generators (ILEX and Strbac, 2002; Holttinen, 2004; DCENR,
2006).
Tidal generation has a signicant advantage over many other
forms of renewable generation as it is almost perfectly fore-
castable over long time horizons. Thus, incorporating tidal
generation into an electricity system should be less challenging
than other forms of renewable generation which are relatively
unpredictable.
Investment in tidal generation adds to the generation capacity
on the system and can thus defer investment in other forms of
generation. This is a benet of tidal generation and is measured by
the capacity credit. The capacity credit of a generator can be
considered as a measure of the amount of conventional generation
that could be displaced by the renewable production without
making the system any less reliable (Castro and Ferreira, 2001).
Another benet of tidal generation is a reduction in harmful
emissions as tidal generation is likely to displace the output of
some thermal units. In addition, a reduction in the operation of
thermal units can also lead to a fuel cost saving as tidal
generation, with a zero fuel cost, replaces units with signicant
fuel costs.
However, despite its predictability, tidal generation output is
still variable and non-dispatchable in nature and as such poses a
challenge for system operators. An increase in variable generation
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol
Energy Policy
0301-4215/$ - see front matter & 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2009.01.009