Marine Energy Resource Assessment for Orkney and Pentland Waters With a Coupled Wave and Tidal Flow Model

Some preliminary results obtained from a coupled wave and 3D tidal flow numerical model, applied to the Orkney and Pentland waters in the Scottish region of the United Kingdom, are reported in this paper. The coupled wave and flow model was applied to the Orkney Islands comprising a domain of 1.25°W – 5°W and 58.25° N – 59.75°N. The model was run by boundary inputs of wind and water level extracted from European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) and Danish Hydraulic Institute’s (DHI) global tidal model respectively. The model has been calibrated and validated with wave buoy and ADCP (Acoustic Doppler and Current Profiler) measurements. The depth-wise current velocity components predicted by the model were compared with ADCP measurements for three sites in the Pentland Firth. The results indicated that the coupled model worked well and the tidal current velocities from the model correlated well with ADCP measurements at different depths.