Marine Current Power

Marine current power is the practice of extracting energy from the kinetic energy of ocean currents, most of them driven by the tides, which are themselves a consequence of the gravitational effects among the Earth, the Moon and the Sun. The strongest, most useful flows occur where underwater topography, such as straits between islands and the mainland or shallows around headlands, concentrates and accelerates the current, and because these flows fluctuate only modestly in speed and direction, they make comparatively predictable sites for deploying energy extraction devices such as turbines. The kinetic energy in a marine current is converted to electricity in much the same way a wind turbine draws energy from moving air, using various types of open-flow rotors suited to working underwater.