Bibliometric analysis of tidal energy: Trends in tidal turbine design, resource assessment, turbulence, and feasibility analysis

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of the tidal energy generation research landscape, aiming to identify current trends, intellectual structures, and future directions in the field. A total of 791 relevant publications were retrieved from the Scopus database, and the data were analyzed using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The study identified influential publications, leading authors, prominent institutions, core journals, and contributing countries. A three-field plot was generated to visualize the relationships among keywords, key journals, and countries. Keyword coupling was employed to classify thematic clusters, and four major research themes were identified: Turbulence analysis, Tidal turbine design, Tidal energy assessment, and Feasibility analysis . Influential and relatively recent papers were selected from each cluster to review the tidal energy-related technologies, analytical methods, key findings, and potential applications associated with each theme. Based on the outcomes of this analysis, future research directions for advancing the field of tidal energy generation were briefly discussed. Overall, the research, development, and investment in the tidal energy sector appear insufficient considering its potential. To address this gap, it is essential to enhance energy conversion efficiency and to promote continued research, investment, and an increase in experimental and demonstration projects. Consequently, this study highlights these needs and discusses potential future directions for the development of tidal energy.