Tidal power plant scheme at Kuching Barrage, Sarawak

• Main Author: Easter Izzaline, Anak Meli
• Format: Final Year Project Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2017
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26347/1/Tidal%20Power%20Plant%20Scheme%2024pgs.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26347/7/Easter%20Izzaline%20Meli%20ft.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/26347/

Renewable energy is the best solution and alternative to overcome the world growing energy demand and fossil fuels deficiency. Tidal energy is also a type of renewable energy that uses barrage and tide height difference to extract energy. Kuching Barrage located in Sarawak was built to mitigate flood in the city of Kuching and has the potential for development into tidal power station. The purpose of this project is to propose suitable tidal power plant scheme for tidal energy harnessing at Kuching Barrage. The site parameters, tidal range and flow rate were investigated in this study. Pending tide tables were used to estimate tidal range of the site and statistical analysis discovered the tidal range was 6.8 m. Theoretical calculation of the barrage gates discharged was 1443.82 m3 /s. Based on these parameters of Kuching Barrage, bulb-type turbine with rated power of 8.65 MW was chosen as the suitable turbine to be deployed. Power estimation of the site also discovered that Kuching Barrage average daily potential energy was 20.17 MW and approximately 35.41 GWh/year could be harness. The study showed that Kuching Barrage has the potential for installation of tidal barrage power plant for tidal energy harnessing. If Kuching Barrage were to be used for tidal energy harnessing the tidal power plant would operate by ebb generation or during the barrage daily flushing operation. The tidal power plant scheme at Kuching Barrage would be a single basin and one-way operation. Additional powerhouse structure should be constructed if the tidal scheme were to be implemented and CAD drawing of the powerhouse was produced using AutoCad in this project. It was estimated that the powerhouse structure would be 56.21 m in length; 125 m in width and with the height of 35.51 m.