placing turbines within existing bridges.

mikesvr6

I live on an island that is connected to the mainland via a stone causeway/bridge and within this are two arches to allow the sea through.
Now there is a large flow through this almost all the time, the only lag time is at low tide and even then the bigger of the bays either side still flows into the the other.
My questions are, How would one go about testing if the flow was enough for a turbine? Who would i need permission from to test?

Oldtree

Sounds like a facinating idea.
Do you own the bridge and lands either side?
Could the bridge withstand the extra tidal forces on it?
What size turbine do you intend?

It sounds like you may need a foreshore licence contact details here:
http://www.environ.ie/en/Foreshore/

and it may be worth talking directly to a council planner at one of their weekly clinics here:
http://www.galway.ie/en/Services/Planning/GuidetoyourServices/

See EPA for measuring:
http://www.epa.ie/whatwedo/monitoring/water/hydrometrics/methods/

mikesvr6

The bridge i assume are owned by the council, and the land either side would be private. The bridges are 100 odd years old, but there has never been a problem with them(they are fairly substantial).

I suppose turbine size would depend on the rate of flow and bridge capacity.
It all depends on the council and permission, so thank you very much for the sites and the help. I'll get on to the council and i'll keep the thread updated.

10-10-20

What creates the flow? Where is the water moving from and to? I assume that as you're on an island, it's simply sea-swell and that the tidal forces are naturally balanced from both sides?
Most of these turbines rely on a body of water being displaced from one location to another, such as from the sea into a natural inlet, so I would wonder if you actually get a positive flow rather than the sea equalising from both sides?

323

Interesting, sounds like you are talking about a potential tidal barrage system. Wee baby version of La Rance in France?



So flow test being the first issue, you are looking for a current meter.

Reasonably OK ones from various manufacturers can be hired quite cheaply, three main different types, propeller, electromagnetic or Doppler (Acoustic/sonar), don't know if allowed to mention company names here but PM and can point you to various equipment hire companies.

More basic ones are like below,



Problem being you would really want to log data for at the very least one month (a full moon cycle) initially to have reasonable starting idea of current flow. You don't want to be watching it all the time (or have it pinched), so probably better with a self recording system you could place on the seabed, recover and download when finished.

As for permission, ????????