Energy · 1966

Tidal barrage

A 240 MW barrage across the Rance estuary harvests the tides.

La Rance in Brittany opened in 1966 with 24 bulb turbines and was the world's largest tidal plant until South Korea's Sihwa Lake in 2011. It shows tides are perfectly predictable, if limited to a few suitable estuaries.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Water turbine 1827
Tide mill 619

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Share of electricity from low-carbon sources Latest: 42.6 % (2025) Source: Our World in Data

World electricity generation Latest: 31.8k TWh (2025) Source: Our World in Data