Lagoon rejection ‘could kill future of UK tidal industry’
BRITAIN’S hopes of being home to a tidal lagoon industry will be killed off if the landmark Swansea Bay project unravels, one of Britain’s leading energy experts has warned.
Former Energy Minister Charles Hendry gave a passionate defence of the proposals when he appeared before MPs, but he issued a stern warning of how the chance to build a thriving lagoon sector could slip away.
More than a year has passed since the independent review he chaired gave the thumbs-up to the “pathfinder” project proposed for Swansea Bay, which it is hoped will lead to the construction of lagoons at sites including Cardiff, Colwyn Bay and Newport.
The UK Government has yet to respond to his recommendations but he said his own support has only strengthened. He warned: “If we stop this whole process now and start again from scratch we will not have a tidal lagoon industry in the United Kingdom. People will simply walk
away and say it’s not worth doing it.”
Mr Hendry appeared before a joint session of the Welsh Affairs and Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy committees alongside Mark Shorrock, the chief executive of Tidal Lagoon Power, the company behind the Swansea project.
Mr Shorrock described the lack of communication with the UK Government, saying: “We would love to know what’s going on. We would like to have a decision.”
He said he believed the last time he had a formal meeting with the Welsh Secretary was at the end of October 2016.
Mr Shorrock said the UK Government had not specified the criteria the company needs to meet in order to secure the project.
The last meeting with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy was, he said, in January last year.
Detailing the consequences of the long wait for a Government response to Mr Hendry’s recommendations, which were published in January 2017, he said: “[We] have seen three [companies in] our supply chain go into administration... We have had to let go a number of staff...
“We’re a private sector business; we’re owned by 540 ordinary shareholders and they’ve continued to support the business to make sure we could get to a decision, but it’s a burn rate of some several hundred thousand a month to maintain.”
First Minister Carwyn Jones has said the Welsh Government is prepared to make a “substantial” investment in the project and Mr Shorrock described this as “quite a game-changer”.
Looking ahead to the proposals for a future lagoon with much greater generating capacity off the coast of Cardiff, he said: “The economics of the Cardiff Tidal Lagoon are phenomenal... We can beat offshore wind with Cardiff Tidal Lagoon, and that’s 3,000MW.”
Mr Hendry argued that Britain has the chance to repeat the success of offshore wind and hit back at critics of investment. He said: “At the time of offshore wind being developed, people were saying exactly the same thing – this is a very expensive technology, why are we bothering to do this when we can much cheaper nuclear? This is an argument which fights absolutely against innovation.
“If we want to get innovation and new technology [then] we have to accept that in the early stages the pilot projects, the pathfinders, will be more expensive. But that’s the way in which you bring the price down.
“In 10 years we’ve moved from a non-existent offshore wind industry to one where the UK is the undisputed global leader in what is increasingly a global industry. We should be looking at where do we then do that next?
“It seems to me that there are very few areas, perhaps next generation nuclear might be one, carbon capture might be one, tidal lagoons is certainly one.”
Mr Hendry added: “I think we are now in the endgame. I think it would be very hard to see why it would need to go on a great deal longer.”
Describing the cost of the Swansea project to bill-payers as “absolutely miniscule”, he said: “It is a pint of milk a year for 30 years. It is 30p a year.”
He also highlighted the strength of support in Swansea, saying: “I have never been to any community where one single power plant would be seen as such a significant driver of economic prosperity; it would bring a raft of new jobs, not just in the energy sector; it would bring new tourism; it would have a transformative impact, potentially.”
However, a much more sceptical perspective came from Richard Howard of Aurora Energy Research.
He argued there were “cheaper low carbon options available” and played down the export potential, saying: “I don’t think we should get overly excited about this... Let’s not assume we will be building these things around the world.”
He also stressed the impact on ordinary people, saying: “It’s the same people, the consumers in Wales, who will be paying for the project who have already seen energy policy costs rise over time.”
But Mr Hendry argued that decision-makers should not worry about taking flak for backing the lagoon.
He said: “The term I used in my review was it is a ‘no regrets’ policy. It’s something where nobody would turn around in years to come and say we shouldn’t have done that...
“What we haven’t focused on at all here is that this is a project for 120 or 150 years; the wind turbines will have gone in 30 and need to be replaced; the nuclear power stations in 60 or 70; this is potentially twice as long as a nuclear power station and for the second half of its life [it] is delivering almost-free electricity at almost no wider cost to consumers.”
But Mike Wilkinson, of the RSPB, cast doubt on the prospects of large scale lagoon development.
He said: “RSPB’s view has always been that a tidal lagoon industry
“would be high risk for wildlife... Swansea is ideal as a pilot in some ways because it’s tucked away in a less sensitive part of the estuary; it doesn’t create any big bird problems for RSPB; it may or may not create a big fish problem; it’s a good place to study the effects.
“Moving development into the very highly protected upper Severn estuary, which carries multiple designations [and] is internationally important for its bird life and its marine habitats, is much more challenging. We’ve seen no convincing evidence so far that large-scale lagoon development could be delivered in a way that is compliable with environmental legislation.”
Gower Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi stressed the strength of local support for the lagoon.
She said: “There is so much disappointment in Wales at this moment [and] in Swansea that for the price of milk people will want it. We do want it and we must move forward.”