SWANSEA TIDAL LAGOON ‘DEAD IN THE WATER’
THE company behind a proposed £1.3bn Swansea Bay tidal lagoon has been told it has failed to discharge the terms of its planning consent, a move which effectively kills off the project.
Planning consent for the lagoon, through a development consent order, granted to infrastructure schemes categorised as being of national significance, was first awarded in June 2015 by the UK Government, with a five-year window to comply with its conditions and start construction work.
While under the Wales Act, the Welsh Government now has responsibility for energy projects up to 350 megawatts, it only applies retrospectively to developments from April 2019.
So the matter of whether the DCO has lapsed, remains a matter for the UK Government, but with the local planning authority of Swansea Council determining whether Tidal Power Plc has discharged the conditions attached.
Swansea Council said Tidal Power had not fulfilled the conditions linked the the DCO, which meant that planning consent for the project had lapsed. Tidal Power said it has started work on the project on Monday, a move described by the council as “unlawful”.
In a statement Swansea Council said: “We have written to Tidal Power Plc stating that the development undertaken on site in recent days is unlawful because it fails to meet the requirements of the development consent order which need to be complied with before development commences.
“As a result, we consider that the DCO has expired.
“We continue to review our legal position and plan to write to Tidal Power plc once more in the coming days.”
Last month Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, Kwasi Kwarteng, wrote to chief executive of Tidal Power, Mark Shorrock, rejecting his request for a standalone bill through Westminster to extend the DCO.
Tidal Power had been furiously lobbying in recent weeks, but it has cut no ice with the UK Government, which rejected back in 2018 providing the project with financial support through a strike price, or green subsidy, to make energy produced commercially viable.
Then Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Greg Clark, said at the time that it didn’t offer value for money for the taxpayer, while the number of direct jobs created would have been relatively small.
That seemingly killed the project off, but Mr Shorrock having already raised and spent more £50m on the scheme to date, was undeterred. He launched a new fundraising round earlier this year.
Even if the terms of the DCO had been compiled with the onshore element of the lagoon, it would still have required the UK Government to agree the decommissioning plans for the lagoon, only submitted last month, for work to start offshore.
It would also have required a marine licence, certainly not a given, from Natural Resources Wales, for a project that would only have provided energy for 150,000 homes, as well as a seabed licence. The project would also have had to raise the necessary finance.
The company had described the Swansea Bay project as a pathfinder with plans for larger tidal lagoons off the western coast of Britain, including the next mooted one off the coast of Cardiff.
The company has yet to repay a £1.2m loan from the Welsh Government.
However, the timing out of the project, leaves room for a new green energy project to emerge.
Last year Swansea Council issued a prior information notice to bring forward ideas for a new energy project in Swansea Bay.
While at a concept stage, this saw the emergence of “Dragon Island”, with a lagoon, floating homes and solar panels, but also the prospect for onshore renewable projects, as well as an energy company seeking to secure long-term supply contracts with major energy users in the region for electricity produced.
However, to take a 2.0 tidal lagoon project forward, will probably need the Welsh Government to oversee a procurement process to bring a new developer [s] on board. A new project could seek a green energy subsidy from the UK Government.
It would though require a new DCO, which would take a number of years. The proposed project, which would include 10,000 homes, has an indicative price tag of just under £1bn.
Any new offshore project up to and including 350 megawatt would require consent from the Welsh ministers. Anything above would require a development consent order from the UK Government.
A spokesperson for the Welsh Government said: “We want to see Wales at the forefront of the marine renewable energy sector and we remain open to further discussions about providing support for such a project, at the appropriate time.”
It had previously indicated potential financial support of around £200m.
However, rather than committing such an amount to a single energy project, the Welsh Government could look to set a fund and invite energy projects, both onshore and off across Wales, to bid for funding.
A UK Government in Wales spokesman said: “The UK Government does not have any fundamental objection to a tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay, we are open to considering other such lagoons or tidal technology developments.
“But any proposed project for Swansea, or elsewhere on the coast of Wales, must provide value for money in a way that the previous scheme did not.”
In a statement Tidal Power, said: “Material operations on the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project comprise demolition of some of the existing structures on that site, and other siteclearing works.
“The beginning of these further works, and the prior ground investigations, each qualify as a material operation under section 155(1) of the Planning Act 2008 resulting to trigger the deeming provision of that section so as to lawfully begin the development authorised by the development consent order prior to the expiration of the period to 30 June 2020.
“These operations secure in perpetuity the planning permission for Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon.”