Introduction: About 70% of earths surface is covered by oceans. It has many energy forms.

Thermal energy and kinetic energy are the some of the forms in which the energy is the stored in the ocean. A varying gravitational field is experienced by the earth due to the changing positions of moon and sun relative to the earths surface. Hence, tides are formed. Marine current turbines are used in producing electricity through tides.

Variation of power output with respect to time: There were many Scottish coastal sites which had been investigated for the tidal power. Cape Wrath was taken here as an example to describe the variation of power output with respect to time. Some of the assumptions made for this task are described hereafter. The operation of steam turbines is an open stream environment. Turbulence and dynamic loading effects are ignored. The power is held constant above a rated stream velocity and device will be designed for maximum power extraction. The values of cp, cut in and cut out speed are taken as 0.3, 1m/s and 2.5m/s. In case of spring tides, about 1/3 peak of power output is evident in significant base load. In case of neap tides, the values of power output were much lower than that of of peak. Successive cycles are having changes.

Opportunities and problems during integration into electricity supply network: If two separate arrays have offset peak flow periods, then marine current turbine installations could provide base grid power. This itself shows that it can be used for large scale. Energy per year/m2 of rotor swept area for a tidal turbine rated 2-3m/s can be four times as that of a similarly rated power wind turbine. Marine current turbines of large size will have more power output compared to the largest wind turbines in the world (2MW).Moreover, marine current turbines can generate large amount of power in less size compared to wind turbines. There are many problems which may occur during their integration into an electricity supply network. Power will be produced only during 10 hours each day. Till now, using present designs lot of amount of electricity has not been produced. During the time of little demand for electricity, power is often generated.

Assumption and principal obstacles: The average energy produced per cycle deals with the variation of power output with respect to time. It involves with time variation from T1 to T2.The average energy depends on Prated a large rate. It is dependent on Vmax at a smaller rate .According to my view, assumption made in calculating average energy produced is highly accurate. Some of the principal obstacles to the exploitation to this resource will be described hereafter. Corrosion will be the main obstacle. Metallic components will be corroded since sea water is a saline solution. Especially the turbine nacelle and external surfaces of tower, blade will be more prone to the corrosion process. Steel is mainly used in

manufacture of marine current turbines. There will be chances of structural degradation in the steel. Barrages may affect the aquatic environment especially fishes and whales.

References: 1.Simulated electric power potential harnessed by marine current turbine arrays in the Alderney race by L.Myers and A.S.Bahaj 2.Fundamentals applicable to the utilisation of marine current turbines for energy production by A.S.Bhaj and L.Myers 3.Experimental verifications of numerical predictions for the hydro dynamic performance of horizontal axis marine turbines by A.S.Bahaj, W.M.J.Batten and G.McCann