Assessing the effectiveness of a global optimum strategy within a tidal farm for power maximization

The proposed methodology is firstly applied to an ideal case (i.e. tidal flow constant in magnitude and direction) to assess the influence of the machines density, the ambient turbulence rate and the speed magnitude on the power improvement rate. Secondly, the method is applied to a hypothetical tidal farm located in the Alderney Race (Raz Blanchard in French), situated between the Alderney Island and La Hague Cape (France). The results of these scenarios indicate that the proposed strategy is interesting mainly when the density of devices is high and/or when the ambient turbulence rate is lower than 10%. In this cases, it is possible to improve the rate by 2.5%.