page_title: Tidal power
section_title: Dynamic tidal power
hierarchical_section_title: Tidal power / Methods / Dynamic tidal power
caption_attribution_description: English: Top-down view of a DTP T-dam. Blue and dark red colors indicate low and high tides, respectively. Note that the level of the tide is both high and low simultaneously at opposite sides of the dam.
context_page_description: Tidal power or tidal energy converts energy obtained from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity.
  Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than the wind and the sun. Among sources of renewable energy, tidal energy has traditionally suffered from relatively high cost and limited availability of sites with sufficiently high tidal ranges or flow velocities, thus constricting its total availability. However, many recent technological developments and improvements, both in design and turbine technology, indicate that the total availability of tidal power may be much higher than previously assumed and that economic and environmental costs may be brought down to competitive levels.
  Historically, tide mills have been used both in Europe and on the Atlantic coast of North America. The incoming water was contained in large storage ponds, and as the tide went out, it turned waterwheels that used the mechanical power it produced to mill grain. The earliest occurrences date from the Middle Ages, or even from Roman times.
context_section_description: Dynamic tidal power (or DTP) is a theoretical technology that would exploit an interaction between potential and kinetic energies in tidal flows. It proposes that very long dams (for example: 30–50 km length) be built from coasts straight out into the sea or ocean, without enclosing an area. Tidal phase differences are introduced across the dam, leading to a significant water-level differential in shallow coastal seas – featuring strong coast-parallel oscillating tidal currents such as found in the UK, China, and Korea. Induced tides (TDP) could extend the geographic viability of a new hydro-atmospheric concept 'LPD' (lunar pulse drum) discovered by a Devon innovator in which a tidal 'water piston' pushes or pulls a metered jet of air to a rotary air-actuator & generator. The principle was demonstrated at London Bridge June 2019. Plans for a 30m, 62.5kwh 'pilot' installation on a (Local Authority) tidal estuary shoreline in the Bristol Channel are underway.
caption: Top-down diagram of a DTP dam. Blue and dark red colours indicate low and high tides, respectively.
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