Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station is the world's largest

tidal power Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods. Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. Ti ...

installation, with a total power output capacity of 254 MW. When completed in 2011, it surpassed the 240 MW

Rance Tidal Power Station The Rance Tidal Power Station is a tidal power station located on the estuary of the Rance River in Brittany, France. Opened in 1966 as the world's first tidal power station, it is currently operated by Électricité de France and was for 45 ye ...

which was the world's largest for 45 years. It is operated by the

Korea Water Resources Corporation The Korea Water Resources Corporation (한국수자원공사, 韓國水資源公社, Korea Water Resources Corporation), or K-water, is the governmental agency for comprehensive water resource development and providing both public and industrial w ...

Design

The

tidal barrage A tidal barrage is a dam-like structure used to capture the energy from masses of water moving in and out of a bay or river due to tidal forces. Instead of damming water on one side like a conventional dam, a tidal barrage allows water to flow ...

makes use of a

seawall A seawall (or sea wall) is a form of coastal defense constructed where the sea, and associated coastal processes, impact directly upon the landforms of the coast. The purpose of a seawall is to protect areas of human habitation, conservation ...

constructed in 1994 for flood mitigation and agricultural purposes. Ten 25.4 MW submerged bulb

turbine A turbine ( or ) (from the Greek , ''tyrbē'', or Latin ''turbo'', meaning vortex) is a rotary mechanical device that extracts energy from a fluid flow and converts it into useful work. The work produced by a turbine can be used for generating e ...

s are driven in an unpumped flood generation scheme; power is generated on tidal inflows only, and the outflow is sluiced away, i.e. as one-way power generation. This slightly unconventional and relatively inefficient approach has been chosen to balance a complex mix of existing land use, water use, conservation, environmental and power generation considerations.Tidal power primed for breakthrough
waterpowermagazine.com The station's mean operating tidal range is , with a spring tidal range of . The working basin area was originally intended to be and has been reduced by land reclamation and freshwater dykes to , likely to be reduced further.

Construction

The power station was built in 2011 and started to operate in 2012. The project cost US$560 million was borne by the

South Korean Government The Government of South Korea is the union government of the South Korea, Republic of Korea, created by the Constitution of South Korea as the executive, legislative and judicial authority of the republic. The president acts as the head of sta ...

.https://www.hydropower.org/blog/technology-case-study-sihwa-lake-tidal-power-station , year=2016Hunt for African Projects
Newsworld Korea, 2009,

Environmental context

After the seawall was built in 1994, pollution built up in the newly created Sihwa Lake

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...

, making its water useless for agriculture.Nohyoung Park (May 2007
Sihwa Tidal Power Plant: a success of environment and energy policy in Korea
Korea University, www.eer.wustl.edu, retrieved 30 May 2016 Concentrations of

perfluorooctane sulfonate Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) (conjugate base perfluorooctanesulfonate) is a chemical compound having an eight-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group and thus a perfluorosulfonic acid. It is an anthropogenic (man-ma ...

(

PFOS Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) (conjugate base perfluorooctanesulfonate) is a chemical compound having an eight-carbon fluorocarbon chain and a sulfonic acid functional group and thus a perfluorosulfonic acid. It is an anthropogenic (man ...

) measured in Lake Sihwa were among the greatest ever measured in the environment. In January 2003, PFOS had been found at 730 ng/L in Lake Shihwa water. In 2004, seawater was reintroduced in the hope of flushing out contamination; inflows from the tidal barrage were envisaged as a complementary permanent solution. As of 2007 the power station was planned to provide this indirect environmental benefit, as well as renewable energy.

Picture

Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station 05.jpg, Identity Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station 02.png, Vertical photo Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station 04.jpg, Control room

Notes

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References

World’s Largest Tidal Power Plant–Shihwa Lake in Korea http://energy.korea.com/archives/6887 Energy infrastructure completed in 2011 Tidal power stations in South Korea Tidal barrages Buildings and structures in Gyeonggi Province