Research Progress in Tidal Energy Technology- A Review

Tidal current energy is one of the most attractive renewable energy concepts due to its significant global potential and resources that are spread across the globe. Most of the countries have access to tidal energy resources available within their geographic boundaries. The tidal energy resource is predictable unlike some of the other renewable energy resources and hence is attracting significant research focus. Substantial research growth has taken place in the tidal energy technology over the past decade. This paper provides a review of the research progress leading to the development of tidal energy technology and explains the concepts and terminologies related to the subject area to provide a ready reference to the researchers. This work identifies new dimensions of the reviewed literature and also provides direction for future research with focus on areas, such as: performance prediction, structural loads, wake and tidal turbine arrays.