Page 7 - The 2019 annual reports of National Academy of Marine Research

Sustainable use of marine power

Bottom topographic survey in the southeastern sea area of Taiwan

As renewable energy has attracted more and
more concern, renewable energy has developed
from the land resources to wind power and solar
energy in many countries. They shifted the focus
of study to the ocean, which covers about 70% of
the area on earth. In the ocean, ample energy
sources, such as temperature difference in
geotherm, ocean current, waves, ebb and tide, and
others exist. Now, existing ocean power
extraction technology, includes wave power
generation, tidal energy, ocean current energy,
ocean thermal power generation, salinity gradient The survey of the seabed topography and bottom
power, etc. They are all possible renewable energy materials in the waters in southeastern Taiwan
sources for the development of ocean power.
The coastline around Taiwan is about 1500km long. In the surrounding waters in the east, the North
Pacific Current passes at the distance of 40km from the shore. Therefore, there are prolific fishing
resources, diverse marine sources, and a unique geographical location. It enables the development
of renewable energy with the ocean. In the future, it will become a method of solving the problem
of energy shortage.

According to past site surveys, an excellent geographic location is a major advantage for the
development of ocean power. The eastern coast of Taiwan is the passage of Kuroshio Current.
Comparing with other countries, the sea area of Kuroshio Current system the area along the passage
of Kuroshio Current in eastern Taiwan, the average total power generation of 5.5GW. From the
overall evaluation, it has better benefits in constructing an ocean current power plant. According
to the principle of maintaining the balance of marine ecology, it is the trend to use ocean resources
effectively to develop marine technology. It is also an important way to develop the marine
economy. Limited by the shortage of funds and basic envirnomental information, such as
topography, bottom materials, etc., it posed significant difficulties to the deisgn of the anchor
system of the power generation platform. In addition, there was alos doubt whether the power
generation capacity was performed as expected or not. Moreover, the development of generating
power with ocean currents may affect the surrounding. These are all the basic environmental
information for the development of ocean current energy generation. With the findings of this
research, it allows us to understand thoroughly the information seabed topography and bottom
materials obtained from the surveys regarding the sea area of the east coast in Taiwan, the location
of the ocean current energy generation. It is expected that in the future it can provide references for
the construction of the observation station and the location for the installation of the anchor system
for ocean current energy generation platform.

6