World's First Tidal Lagoon Green Lit for Wales

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The world's first tidal lagoon power project has been given the green light by the U.K. government.

Planning permission has been granted for the proposed, 240-megawatt (MW) Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC). The first-of-its-kind project will see the construction of a 9.5-kilometer (km), U-shaped seawall running from the entrance to the River Tawe near Swansea Dock out to sea, before curving back to re-join land next to Swansea University. The £1 billion ($1.56 billion) tidal lagoon will be able to generate up to 500 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity annually, enough to power 121,000 homes.

The company will seek to secure a long-term guaranteed electricity price agreement - a Contract for Difference (CfD) - with the government. DECC said that it must now establish whether a tidal lagoon at Swansea Bay is "affordable and value for money for consumers."

The project has some heavyweight backers, including Alstom S.A. (ENX:ALO) (Paris, France), Costain Group (LSE:COST) (Maidenhead, U.K.), Atkins (Sheffield, England), Macquarie Group (ASX:MQG) (Sydney, Australia) and Dutch marine engineering firm Van Oord (Rotterdam).

Tidal Lagoon Power Limited (TLP) sees the Swansea project as the first step to building five additional full-scale tidal projects around the U.K., which would be capable of supplying 8% of the U.K.'s total electricity for about 120 years.

Lord Bourne, the Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office Minister, said: "We need more clean and home-grown sources of energy, which will help to reduce our reliance on foreign fossil fuels. Low-carbon energy projects like the tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay could bring investment, support local jobs and help contribute to the Welsh economy and Swansea area."

Mark Shorrock, chief executive of developer Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay Plc, added: "With the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon becoming a reality, locking in 120-year-life, zero-carbon energy infrastructure, we have the potential to help transform our industrial economy and the U.K.'s energy mix. Through a single project, we have the opportunity to create a whole new industry. And in a single step, that project can take us to low-cost, renewable energy on a nuclear scale. We see it as a game-changer, a scalable blueprint, paving the way for a fleet of lagoons that can work in harmony with nature to help secure the nation's electricity for generations to come."

In March, the company revealed plans for the first large-scale project at Cardiff Bay, Wales. The lagoon would stretch between Cardiff and Newport, using up to 90 turbines within a 22-km breakwater. It will have a planned generating capacity of between 1,800 MW and 2,800 MW--more than enough to power all of the homes in Wales. For additional information, see March 9, 2015, article - New Tidal Lagoon Power Project for Wales.

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