UK Energy Minister Reaffirms Government’s Commitment to Wave and Tidal Power

RenewableUK has welcomed comments made by the Energy and Climate Change Minister Gregory Barker in his opening speech at the trade association’s Annual Wave and Tidal Conference in London, in which he declared that “now is the time for the next bold steps – moving from individual projects to large scale arrays”. 

Addressing over 500 delegates, Mr Barker said: “Together, building on the extraordinary progress of the sector to date and looking forward to the future, we can build on our current leadership to transform the UK into the global hub for a multi-billion pound green industry.”

The Minister announced that two British companies have been awarded £20 million under the Government’s Marine Energy Array Demonstrator (MEAD) scheme to accelerate the growth of the tidal industry. In Scottish waters, MeyGen Ltd is developing a tidal array in Pentland Firth. SeaGeneration (Wales) will install an array off the coast of Anglesey.

He also announced that Pelamis Wave Power has been awarded £1.4 million from the Energy Technologies Institute to develop cost-effective Wave arrays in UK waters.

RenewableUK Chief Executive Maria McCaffery said: “This is a strong vote of confidence from the Energy Minister in the wave and tidal sector. He told more than 500 people at RenewableUK’s marine energy conference today that “this Government supports wave and tidal 110%”. He backed that up with key announcements on funding to help the industry to move from full-scale single devices in the water to full-scale arrays, so that the UK can capitalise on its global lead, harnessing the strongest natural marine energy resource in Europe.

“The Minister also made it clear that he’s well aware of the importance of getting the details of the Energy Bill right, so that Electricity Market Reform creates the best framework for the wave and tidal industries to achieve their full potential. That will only happen if a realistic level of financial support is forthcoming. The prize is enormous – an industry worth more than £6 billion a year by 2035 with nearly 20,000 jobs – generating clean electricity to cut the amount of expensive fossil fuels the UK has to import, so that we can control the cost of our energy.” 

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Press release, February 28, 2013; Image: deccgovuk