1 / 11

Understanding Acoustic Effects of Hydrokinetic Tidal Turbines

Research project on acoustic impacts of tidal energy project on marine life, exploring turbine noise, marine species responses, and ambient noise. Involves industry, university, and laboratory collaboration. Data publicly available. Technical approaches include monitoring biophysical characteristics, underwater noise measurements, and effects of turbine noise on marine life. Project targets completion by December 31, 2011, with focus on scaling noise estimates and quieter turbine design trade-offs.

helen
Télécharger la présentation

Understanding Acoustic Effects of Hydrokinetic Tidal Turbines

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Water Power Peer Review Dr. Brian Polagye University of Washington, NNMREC bpolagye@uw.edu November 1, 2011 Acoustic Effects of Hydrokinetic Tidal Turbines

  2. Purpose, Objectives, & Integration • Determine the likely acoustic effects from a tidal energy project – understand potential harm to marine life • Ambient noise (context for turbine noise) • Sound from turbines (at various device scales) • Marine species presence (space and time variation) • Effect of sound on marine species (injury and behavioral changes) • All data collected over course of project in public domain (NNMREC website) • Industry, university, and laboratory involvement • Snohomish PUD: Craig Collar and Jessica Spahr • University of Washington: Brian Polagye, Jim Thomson, Chris Bassett (NSF graduate research fellow), Joe Graber • SMRU, Ltd: Dom Tollit and Jason Wood • PNNL: Andrea Copping and Tom Carlson

  3. Technical Approach Monitoring Biological and Physical Characteristcs Sea Spider (bottom-mounted) Ambient noise recorder Marine mammal echolocation detectors Fish tag receiver Doppler profiler AIS Tracking (land-based) Infrared detection (land-based)

  4. Technical Approach Sound from Tidal Turbines • Limited measurements from OpenHydro turbine at EMEC • Apply first-order scaling rules for arrays of larger turbines • Focus on post-installation characterization of turbine noise • Omnidirectional sound propagation test • Demonstrate characterization methodology for TRL 7/8 projects • Necessary to place turbine noise in context of ambient noise OpenHydro turbine noise measurements (Scottish Association of Marine Sciences )

  5. Technical Approach Effects of Turbine Noise • Literature review of effects on marine species from percussive and continuous noise • Laboratory experiments expanding knowledge base (juvenile salmon) • Exposure to simulated turbine noise in anechoic tank • Measured hearing response to identify onset of threshold shift • Necropsies to identify tissue damage • Proxy study: effect of ferry noise on harbor porpoise • Ferry noise frequency distribution similar to turbine Top: Fish undergoing an Auditory Evoked Potential (AEP) Hearing test. Bottom: Electrophysiological response

  6. Plan, Schedule, & Budget Schedule • Initiation date: September 30, 2009 (under contract March 26, 2010) • Planned completion date: December 31, 2011 • Fabrication and deployment of Sea Spiders (August 2010) • Sound propagation field study (August 2011) • Laboratory hearing/exposure experiment (March – June 2011) • Presentation of results (e.g., webinars, conferences) (2010-2011) Budget • Two additional Sea Spider deployments (increased supplies) • 85% of DOE funds costed (September 2011)

  7. Accomplishments and Results Context is Crucial for Interpreting Acoustic Effects Estimated effect of turbine operation on ambient noise Ambient noise will also complicate post-installation measurements

  8. Accomplishments and Results Maximum Ambient Noise is Vessel Dominated Vessel density (vessel-minutes) in project area Cumulative probability distributions of broadband received levels

  9. Accomplishments and Results Marine Mammal Response is Site-Specific N = 16 R2 = 0.1, F = 5.5, p = 0.02 • No apparent avoidance to exposure at 140 dB (broadband) • Indicator of noise habituation

  10. Challenges to Date • Acoustic Source • Limited measurements – difficult to quantify “turbine noise” • Focus on testing methods to characterize turbine noise post-install • Measurements • Flow noise and self noise affect measurements when currents > 1 m/s • Development of compact flow shield for stationary measurements and drifting hydrophone approach • Species effects • Cannot experiment directly on marine mammals • Opportunistic proxy studies • Surrogate laboratory experiments OpenHydro turbine noise measurements (Scottish Association of Marine Sciences )

  11. Next Steps • Project Completion • Summary report describing techniques and lessons learned • Analysis of source propagation data • Publications: vessel noise, harbor porpoise presence, proxy study of noise effects • Future Work • Better analytical tools for scaling noise estimates from measurements • Simple tools for pre-installation estimates – emphasize measuring noise at pilot-scale • Scale-up – design trade-offs for quieter turbines

More Related