Sihwa tidal power plant, South Korea

Landsat TM acquired on 14 May 1985 at 01:40:56 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 06 January 2017 at 21:39:24 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 01 February 2018 from 21:31:15 to 21:31:40 UTC
Sentinel-1 CSAR IW acquired on 25 February 2019 at 21:39:42 UTC
Sentinel-2 MSI acquired on 24 October 2021 at 02:17:49 UTC
Author(s): Sentinel Vision team, VisioTerra, France - svp@visioterra.fr
Keyword(s): Coastal, infrastructure, power plant, renewable energy, coal power, tide, South Korea
Fig. 1 - L5 (14.05.1985) - View of Daebudo island, near Seoul, South Korea, before a seawall was built and land reclamation began.
2D view
Fig. 2 - S2 (24.10.2021) - Built in 2011 near Yeongheung coal power station, Sihwa Lake station is the World's largest tidal power plant.
2D view
The working basin area was originally intended to be 43 km² and has been reduced by land reclamation and freshwater dykes to 30 km², likely to be reduced further.
Fig. 3 - S1 (01.02.2018) - View at high tide, when the large tidal flats are immersed under water.
3D view
After the seawall was built in 1994, pollution built up in the newly created Sihwa Lake reservoir, making its water useless for agriculture. It improved after the reservoir was converted. The tidal barrage makes use of a seawall constructed in 1994 for flood mitigation and agricultural purposes.
Fig. 4 - S1 (25.02.2019) - Power is generated on tidal inflows only, and the outflow is sluiced away, i.e. as one-way power generation.
3D view 3D animation
Fig. 5 - S2 (24.10.2021) - The station's mean operating tidal range is 5.6 m, with a spring tidal range of 7.8 m.
3D view
Requiring no fuel, it has a regular and predictable energy output. With a power capacity of 254 MW, the power plant generates 552 GWh a year with a capacity factor of 24.8%.
The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Space Agency or the European Union.
Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024, processed by VisioTerra.
More on European Commission space:
More on ESA: S-1 website S-2 website S-3 website
More on Copernicus program: Scihub portal Cophub portal Inthub portal Colhub portal
More on VisioTerra: Sentinel Vision Portal Envisat+ERS portal Swarm+GOCE portal CryoSat portal