Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab) I beg to move, That this House has
considered tidal range energy generation. It is a pleasure to serve
under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. The UK, more than any other
country in the world, is uniquely positioned to harness the power
of its tides. Ten per cent of the world’s tidal resources, and half
of Europe’s, are found in Britain. Already well-developed plans for
tidal range projects across the west coast promise to...Request free trial
(Birkenhead) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered tidal range energy generation.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame
Caroline.
The UK, more than any other country in the world, is uniquely
positioned to harness the power of its tides. Ten per cent of the
world’s tidal resources, and half of Europe’s, are found in
Britain. Already well-developed plans for tidal range projects
across the west coast promise to mobilise and deliver 10 GW of
net zero energy, with the potential for 10 GW of additional
capacity—enough to meet approximately 12% of the UK’s electricity
needs over the coming decades, when, as a result of our efforts
to decarbonise transport, heating and industry, demand for
electricity is set to more than double.
While I want to approach this debate constructively, the
Government’s ambition in supporting the development of new tidal
range projects has been sorely lacking. Tidal range technology
was excluded entirely from the Energy Act 2023, and the one
reference made to tidal power in the 2022 energy security
strategy—a commitment to “aggressively explore” the possibilities
of tidal power—has not been delivered on. Although we see
encouraging steps in the right direction, including moving
towards the inclusion of tidal in the national policy statements
on energy and the publication of guidance on tidal range on 18
December last year, much more still needs to be done.
In his correspondence with me dated 26 October, the Minister for
Energy Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Beverley
and Holderness (), stated that
“the government remains open to considering well-developed
proposals for harnessing tidal range energy”,
but that
“any such proposal would need to demonstrate strong evidence of
value for money in the context of other low carbon
technologies.”
The issue of value for money has long been cited as the main
obstacle to unlocking the potential of the UK’s vast tidal
resources. Indeed, when the then Secretary of State for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy declined in 2018 to provide the
proposed tidal lagoon project on Swansea bay with the price
stabilisation mechanism that was needed to guarantee investor
certainty, it was on the grounds that the levelised cost of
energy was higher than that of low-carbon alternatives, including
new nuclear.
(Strangford) (DUP)
I support the hon. Gentleman in bringing forward this issue,
which is really important for my constituency of Strangford. He
has given the example of Swansea. Strangford lough has obvious
potential for a tidal stream, which is why there was a trial
there in 2008 with SeaGen. I was a Member of the Northern Ireland
Assembly at the time. It was a successful pilot scheme but did
not seem to go any further. As energy prices have risen, the
possibility of a new scheme is even more likely. Does the hon.
Gentleman agree that the devolved Administrations have a role to
play in developing tidal stream and tidal range, which the
Government should utilise so that we can all play our part in
tidal energy?
Yes, I do. There are more examples of tidal energy to come. If
the Government take cognisance of the points being made in
today’s debate, hopefully some progress can be made.
The former Secretary of State’s decision was met with incredulity
by many figures in the industry, coming as it did only 18 months
after Charles Hendry’s independent review found that tidal
lagoons could
“play a cost effective role in the UK’s energy mix”
and constituted
“an important and exciting new industry for the United
Kingdom.”
In retrospect, and particularly in the light of the conclusions
of the study undertaken at the University of Birmingham in 2022,
which found that the Swansea tidal lagoon would have returned
profits to the low-carbon contract company, the Government’s
decision not to provide support for the Swansea bay project seems
to have been seriously misjudged. It has deprived us of a
credible pathfinder project of the kind advocated by Charles
Hendry’s review.
However, I have not called this debate simply to revisit debates
from a long time before either the Minister or I had entered
Parliament. Today is not about looking backwards; it is about
facing the future, and asking what we can do to guarantee our
energy security in a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty and
climate breakdown, and the role tidal range generation has to
play in that process. In that vein, I ask the Minister and his
colleagues to recognise that the fundamental question of value
for money needs revisiting.
Principally, that means adopting a whole-systems approach when
assessing cost-effectiveness. The levelised cost of energy can be
a useful tool, but it can also be a blunt instrument when it
comes to gauging the comparative costs of renewable and
low-carbon energy sources that fails to take into consideration
the additional costs of solar and wind generation caused by grid
transmission constraints, rebalancing and storage.
It also fails to account for the fact that, uniquely for a
renewable, tidal energy is a timetabled predictable resource,
giving it an important role to play when seasonal factors
interrupt supply from solar and wind. In my previous engagements
on this issue, I have made the case that when a whole-systems
analysis is made, the costs of tidal power are comparable to
offshore wind and new nuclear.
I am sure the Minister will take great interest in the research
currently being carried out by Jacobs for the British Hydropower
Association, soon to be published, which confirms that
analysis.
Several hon. Members rose—
I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West
() first and then my right
hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington ().
(Wirral West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, his
important work on this matter and his tireless work for the
people of Birkenhead. I am sure he will agree that we have an
obligation to future generations, and that we urgently need to
put in place the infrastructure to power a fossil fuel-free
future. Delay is unacceptable and we urgently need to see
Government action.
(Hayes and Harlington)
(Lab)
I know that my hon. Friend does not want to look backwards, but I
do. My first meeting on the barrage across the Mersey was in
2015. If Government had implemented it then, it would be
operational now. The trajectory was always going to be that
alternative fuel sources would be cheaper than reliance on rising
oil prices. It is obvious that that will also be the future
trajectory. That is why there is a sense of urgency about this
now.
I thank my two colleagues for their interventions; I totally
agree with their contributions. I hope that after today we will
see more movements in tidal power. I do not want the Minister to
believe that I am under any illusions about the up-front costs of
tidal range generation. They are undoubtedly significant, but
these are ultra-long lifecycle assets, which will continue to
provide clean, green power for more than a century.
As a case in point, 2024 marks the 58th anniversary of the
world’s first tidal power station becoming operation on the Rance
river in Brittany. Today, it is less than half way through its
estimated lifespan of 120 years, and continues to supply green
and affordable energy. As the Chair of the Environmental Audit
Committee said in 2021, when he urged the Business Secretary to
seize the potential of our tides:
“Once these costs are paid off, the energy generated from range
projects would be very low in cost and would be delivered over a
longer time horizon than (for instance) energy generated from
wind installations, which require repeated renewal.”
(Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for his
excellent speech. He is right to say that, although the up-front
costs of developing tidal schemes can be expensive, the lifetime
costs per year are absolutely not. We are in an election year and
there is a tendency for us to think short term; we are rebuked
for the fact that we need to look long term. If we build the
tidal scheme we want to see across Morecambe bay and Duddon
estuary, that will mean 7.8 TW of energy, 7,300 construction jobs
and 7,400 long-term jobs. That is great for the economy and great
for the environment. All we need is a Government that can act for
the long term.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. He makes a
great point. As I have said, right down the west coast there is a
need for tidal power, which I hope we can generate. I know it is
an election year, but this matter is cross-party and not about
being adversarial.
Last year, the Government passed legislation to ensure financial
support for new nuclear power aimed at achieving what Ministers
have described as a nuclear renaissance. As with tidal range
projects, the capital costs of nuclear power plants are
considerable, but the Government have nevertheless recognised
them as necessary to securing a vital domestic supply of
low-carbon energy. We will of course need to consider the optimum
financing arrangements for new tidal range projects. In fact,
establishing a sustainable financial mechanism was one of the key
objectives of the amendments that I tabled to the Energy Bill in
September last year, which would have established the tidal range
assessment grant to fund an independent, evidence-led study into
tidal range generation. Although the contract for difference
scheme may be adapted to support the development of smaller tidal
range projects, it is clearly not suitable for supporting the
development of larger gigawatt-scale projects.
As I said when I last raised tidal range generation in the House,
the Government need to be working with the industry to look
seriously at the merits of employing a regulated asset-based
model for funding tidal range, just as they did last year with
new nuclear. There is considerable enthusiasm in industry to
develop our tidal range capacities, but investor confidence
remains low, largely because of a widespread—and I am afraid, for
the time being, legitimate—concern that developers will not have
the Government support.
Ministers have said that they want to continue a dialogue with
the hydropower industry but if we are going to rescue the 10 GW
of tidal range capacity currently stranded in development, the
developers need assurances that they will have a proactive
partner in Government. The British Hydropower Association has
established just some steps that the Government could take to
build investor confidence and create a favourable policy context
for tidal range. Those include establishing a Government-industry
partnership similar to the one established for offshore wind in
2012, which has had such success, the inclusion of tidal range as
an explicit technology within the UK energy strategy and national
policy statements, and building on the work that was undertaken
through the tidal lagoon challenge. We also need Ministers to
develop a road map for tidal range, which the EAC recommended in
2021. It called on the Government to set out a stated ambition
for the sector in gigawatts of generating capacity, alongside an
industry strategy for the sector that would ensure that the
supply chain was onshore in the UK in order to support British
businesses.
I have spoken so far about tidal range generation only in general
terms, but now want to consider the specific proposals put
forward by Metro Mayor and his colleagues in the
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority for the Mersey tidal
power project. I understand that the Minister of State for Energy
Security and Net Zero, the right hon. Member for Beverley and
Holderness met the team behind the Mersey tidal power project as
recently as last autumn, so I hope that the substance of the
proposals are familiar to the Minister representing the
Government in this debate.
The project represents an unparalleled opportunity for our
region. It has the potential to provide a predictable domestic
green energy supply to a million homes on Merseyside and to
create thousands of new jobs, including in my constituency of
Birkenhead, while supporting hundreds of UK companies across the
supply chain. If delivered successfully, the Mersey tidal power
project would undoubtedly be transformative for our region, but
its impact would also be felt nationwide, helping to bring us
closer to achieving our legally binding targets to reach net zero
carbon emissions by 2050.
The Mersey is a relatively short estuary with shallow waters, and
this geography makes the area the ideal location for a commercial
pilot project of the kind that industry figures believe is
essential to accelerating progress in this sector. By assigning
the Mersey tidal power project pilot status, the Government could
begin to resolve issues around regulation, planning restrictions
and environmental impact before turning their attention to larger
gigawatt-scale schemes such the Morecambe tidal barrage, of which
I know the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale () is an enthusiastic champion.
Here again, though, we need to see the Government working as an
active collaborator with the Liverpool City Region Combined
Authority as well as industry. The Metro Mayor has, in
particular, been keen to stress the importance of central
Government making available the kind of funding and support that
was provided to hydrogen and carbon capture and storage
technologies, and of central and local governments developing a
common approach towards the Crown Estate and Duchy of Lancaster
so that the necessary seabed leases can be secured without
prohibitively high entry costs.
When confronted by the war in Ukraine, the crisis in the middle
east and the existential threat of climate breakdown, the
question of how we secure our energy independence has never been
so important. It is time for us to reckon seriously with how we
can exploit our natural geography to secure a clean, green, and
domestic energy supply for generations to come. It is time for us
to harness the power of our tides.
11.15am
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy Security
and Net Zero ()
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this
morning, Dame Caroline. It is also a pleasure to be here to
discuss such an important topic, so I congratulate the hon.
Member for Birkenhead () on securing today’s
important debate. He has a considerable track record of
championing this particular sector—and indeed his constituency,
of course—so I welcome his calling this debate.
As was mentioned, the invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent rise
in global energy prices demonstrated the importance of securing
domestic home-grown energy sources. As we saw at COP28 in the
UAE, for the first time, there is a global consensus on the need
to move away from fossil fuels. Therefore, I, and indeed the
Government, share with the right hon. Member for Hayes and
Harlington () and the hon. Member for
Wirral West () the sense of the
urgency that is required here and of the necessity to move
quickly.
We are very proud that the UK is already a global leader in the
field of climate change, and we must continue to find and develop
more ways to extract naturally occurring energy through
renewables. We have already cut emissions further and faster than
any other major economy since 1990, we were the first country in
the G7 to halve our emissions, and we have boosted our share of
renewables from just 7% in 2010 to almost 50% today. That keeps
us on track for our legally binding net zero 2050 target and for
a fully decarbonised power sector by 2035.
To deliver these targets and provide long-term energy security,
we must consider all of the tools available to us, and tidal
range—the reason we are here today—provides yet another domestic
energy source to our growing list of renewables. It also shows
promise as a large-scale, fully predictable and
non-weather-dependent source of power. Tidal range, as everybody
in this room knows, could yield energy-system benefits by
balancing the grid against variable renewable sources such as
wind and solar. Additionally, with sites of suitability being
close to centres of high demand, such as Liverpool, tidal range
could circumvent the need for extensive grid connections.
The UK has the second-highest tidal range in the entire world,
and that is why, in the British energy security strategy, we
committed to aggressively explore its potential, building on the
research already conducted, such as in the place referred to by
the hon. Member for Strangford () earlier. Therefore, officials in the Department are
doing just that—aggressively exploring the options for tidal
range in the future—by working with the sector to model the
potential energy-system benefits of tidal range and establish an
evidence base to build upon.
Officials in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero will
continue to engage closely with the sector throughout this
process and will communicate their findings, when appropriate, to
the sector and indeed to Members of this House. We have already
consulted with the sector and published a dedicated page for
tidal range on gov.uk, and, just yesterday, I had a meeting on
how we might improve even that offer through the Government
portal. As a nation surrounded by water, we will continue to work
with the sector, and with Members interested, to explore and take
advantage of the opportunities presented by tidal range to
provide clean and secure renewable energy.
I thank the hon. Member for Birkenhead for bringing this
important, pertinent and timely debate to this Chamber today, and
I look forward to working with him and others, and the sector, as
we seek to improve and build upon the success of tidal range
moving forward.
Question put and agreed to.
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