Harvesting ocean energy with a small-scale tidal-current turbine and fish aggregating device in the Indonesian Archipelagos

Indonesia has many archipelagos with long and complex coastlines that connect to the Pacific Ocean in the northeast and to the Indian Ocean in the southwest. Several species of fish in this area are easily attracted to fish aggregating devices (FADs), which are a type of environmentally friendly artificial ocean infrastructures. We investigated characteristics of tidal currents in the Indonesia archipelagos and suitably designed a small-scale tidal-current turbine with an FAD to independently supply electric power to the archipelagos. Moreover, we estimated the amount of electric power generated by the setup. The results indicate that the tidal currents in narrow straits are considerably higher in archipelagos, such as the Maluku and Nusa Tenggara Islands including Bali Strait. Lombok Strait also exhibited the maximum tidal-current velocity of 4 m/s. The small-scale tidal-current turbine was theoretically and numerically designed to utilize the tidal current specific to the Indonesian archipelagos. We estimated the amount of electric power generated by the 2.2-m-diameter turbine with 10-kW class to adjust to the specific archipelagos.