Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group
The event was chaired by Simon Whatley FIMechE, Chair of the Fluid Machinery Group, and was attended by Rupert Blackstone, Chair of EESG.
This took the form of an informal group discussion between Institution representatives and industry wave and tidal industry representatives with the aim of creating a viable policy position on wave and tidal energy with which to lobby the Welsh Government in Summer 2016 to enact this policy.
This was also to feed into the forthcoming overarching IMechE energy position statement, the development of which is being led by Jen Baxter, the Institution's Energy and Environment Theme Manager, who was present at the event. Questions addressed at the meeting were:
1. What role do marine renewables have in Wales and is this achievable?
2. What opportunities are there for Wales to grow manufacturing for the power sector in the UK in relation to developing Wales’s energy future?
Dr John Idris Jones of the Anglesey Energy Island project presented on “Energy Generation in Wales”. The Anglesey Energy Island project is a partnership of stakeholders within the public and private sector aiming to put Anglesey at the forefront of energy research and development, production and servicing.
This includes a 38km2 demonstration zone for Minesto tidal current turbines. Dr Jones emphasised that for marine renewable project, the most critical requirements were:
1) Permissions
2) Grid connection
3) Finance
He made reference to TAN8, the Welsh Government technical advice note on renewables, overlooking the significance of grid connection.
Dr George Aggidis gave a presentation on “Marine and Tidal Energy – Wales’s way forward”. As an expert in marine renewables he ran through the various technologies that could be implemented and on what their benefits could be for Wales. This included consideration of additional benefits of certain systems beyond just power generation, such as flood prevention.
Tom Pendrey of Tidal Lagoon Power (seconded from Mott MacDonald) gave a presentation on the “Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon Project”. He gave an insight into the construction and operation of the planned 320MW Swansea Bay project and also gave an idea of the wider potential around the coastline.
Reference was made to the initial government contracts for difference (CFD) support mechanism strike price for tidal lagoon power arrived at by Poyry of £168/MWh reducing to £92/MWh with increasing economy of scale, as compared to the £85-90 MWh that would be expected to apply to the Severn Barrage tidal project, should it go ahead. The Severn Barrage project would be cheaper largely because, instead of a wall running all the way round the perimeter of a lagoon, natural land formation offers much of the containment, so there are significantly reduced civils costs.
Ioan Jenkins, Development Director of Tidal Lagoon Power, said that the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon scheme could lead to the creation of 70,000 jobs. Ioan also expressed the view that Tidal Lagoon Power supported 65% of the project being built in Wales.
In taking the output of this meeting forward in communications with the Welsh government there will need to be exploration of what it will be prepared to do to support the project in the wider interests of Wales and on how far it can press demands for Welsh involvement without repelling the commercial participants.
With the output also feeding in to the wider Institution energy position and strategy to communicate with the UK government, there should be the potential to achieve more through linkage with other industry sectors.
Find out more about the Energy, Environment and Sustainability Group (EESG).
The views of the writer do not necessarily represent the views of the Institution.