Hydrokinetic energy site selection under high seasonality: The i-IHE index

A novel index is developed to select sites for hydrokinetic energy exploitation in coastal areas with high resource seasonality – the typical case being estuaries whose hydrodynamics are highly influenced by variable river discharges. The intra-annual Integrated Hydrokinetic Energy (i-IHE) index is constructed by means of a new penalty function that modifies the Integrated Hydrokinetic Energy (IHE) index. The i-IHE index thus defined is applied to a case study: the Miño Estuary (NW Iberian Peninsula), with seasonal variations of up to 1000 % in the riverine discharge. The hydrodynamics are modelled by the state-of-the-art Delft3D-FLOW code using a high-resolution 2DH grid. The results confirm a strong variability in the resource, with time periods shorter than seasons. The results obtained for the penalty function throughout the Miño Estuary, with values ranging between 0.5 and 0.75, show the relevance of the i-IHE index in order to not overestimate the potential of coastal areas subject to large intra-annual variability. Compared to the conventional IHE index, the novel i-IHE index highlights smaller areas with greater energy potential. The larger exploitable energy in these areas, along with the lower costs and fewer restrictions for hydrokinetic energy operation, will be of interest to developers and stakeholders.