SUITABLE POWERHOUSE DESIGN FOR KUCHING BARRAGE TIDAL POWER SCHEME

Renewable energy is the best solution and alternative to overcome the world growing energy demand and fossil fuels deficiency. Tidal energy is also renewable energy that uses barrage and tide height difference to extract energy. Kuching Barrage located in Sarawak was built to mitigate flood in the city of Kuching and has the potential for development into tidal power station. The purpose of this paper is to offer suitable tidal power plant system for tidal energy harnessing at Kuching Barrage. The study showed that Kuching Barrage has the potential for installation of tidal barrage power plant for tidal energy harnessing. If Kuching Barrage were to be used for tidal energy harnessing the tidal power plant would operate by ebb generation or during the barrage daily flushing operation. The tidal power plant scheme at Kuching Barrage would be a single basin and one-way operation. Additional powerhouse structure should be constructed if the tidal scheme were to be implemented. It was estimated that the powerhouse structure would be 56.21 m in measurement; 125 m in size and with the height of 35.51 m.