The news that the UK government has rejected plans to build the world’s first tidal power lagoon in Wales has been met with criticism from many sides.
Plans for the project were first mooted back in 2003; last year an independent report by lagoon review head Charles Hendry was largely supportive and the scheme had £200m backing from the Welsh Government. This week’s rejection will come as a blow to Swansea, which had been hoping for a significant boost to its economy through new jobs and increased renewable energy generation; and for those proponents of tidal energy who believed the project represented an opportunity to lead the way in this emerging technology.
From the manufacturing side, Dr Jennifer Baxter, Head of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: “We are disappointed by this news as it is a missed opportunity to boost innovation and manufacturing in Wales. The project would have been a demonstration of first-of-a-kind technology and would have brought valuable new skills to Wales. This type of innovative scheme is key to encouraging growth and diversifying industry in the region.”
Meanwhile Rémi Gruet, CEO of Ocean Energy Europe said: “The benefits of tidal lagoons were well recognised, the cost of support comparatively cheap, and the long-term perspective very promising. Today’s decision is therefore regrettable.
The UK government should now make sure it doesn’t miss out on other emerging technologies such as tidal stream or wave energy. The UK is the global leader in tidal stream, and the world’s most advanced projects are generating electricity in UK waters today.”
Alternative energy forms
Despite claims from project developer Tidal Lagoon Power (TLP) that a new, revised offer for the £1.3bn project would make it cheaper, and that it would ‘kick start an industry’, Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark said it was not value for money: “Securing our energy needs into the future has to be done seriously and, when much cheaper alternatives exist, no individual project, and no particular technology, can proceed at any price?”
What are these cheaper alternatives? The government still appears to be committed to nuclear energy, as is evidenced by the new nuclear power station at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, which was given a strike price (i.e. the guaranteed price for electricity generated) of £92.50/MWh for 35 years. But according to the BBC the TLP claims the Swansea project is cheaper than nuclear power: it has previously asked for a 90-year contract with the UK government with an average strike price of £89.99/MWh.
It is true, however, that tidal energy is by no means the cheapest form of renewable. Looked at from a purely cost perspective, then, many would argue the decision is a rational one. For example, as reported in the Guardian, the most recent government auctions saw offshore wind schemes win contracts at record lows of £52,50/MWh. And yet the government cut subsidies for solar power and offshore wind in 2015.
This, argues the same paper, suggests that the decision was not only down to cost, but was an ideological one. While Mr Clark himself claimed to put ‘evidence before ideology: ’“Too many of his Conservative colleagues remain too strongly attached to fossil fuels, including the prospect of a whole new shale gas industry.”
Whether this is the last we will hear of the project remains to be seen. Yesterday there were reports that Henry Dixon, chairman of North Wales Tidal Energy, the company behind the project, said he was not deterred by the decision and that it “would not stop North Wales Tidal Energy & Coastal Protection Ltd (NWTE) continuing to develop and promote a North Wales tidal lagoon.”