3. Tidal power plants

3.1 Reservoirs (or basins)

Various solutions have been studied that hydraulically combine two reservoirs at different levels, improving turbine output. However, these solutions greatly modify the tidal regime and levels at the coast, and are generally rejected because of this significant change to the environment.

The reservoirs that can be envisaged are therefore essentially simple reservoirs. They can be created :

• by damming an estuary (Rance plant in France: 1965). This saves on dykes, but the environmental problems are more difficult (especially when salinity varies), and there...