Three barrage and two near-shore lagoon proposals shortlisted

Weekly Intelligence Brief

Three barrage and two near-shore lagoon proposals shortlisted

20 July 2009

The UK government has published its response to the first Severn Tidal Power consultation, confirming high level analysis of the impact of three barrages and two lagoons and is working to bring forward three schemes using embryonic technologies - two tidal fences and a low head barrage.

The shortlisted ones are:

· Beachley barrage (0.625GW, £2.3bn)

· Bridgwater Bay lagoon (1.36GW, £3.8bn)

· Cardiff-Weston barrage between Lavernock Point and Brean Down (8.64GW, £20.9bn)

· Fleming lagoon at Welsh Grounds (1.36GW, £4bn)

· Shoots barrage (1.05GW, £3.2bn)

It has been recommended that these schemes remain the only schemes that are potentially technically and economically feasible (i.e. have a realistic chance of being built) at this stage. They will be considered both in isolation and combination where this is possible.

The feasibility study, which will conclude after a second public consultation, probably in 2010, is considering whether the government could support a Severn tidal power scheme.

Several factors were used to determine the feasibility: technical risk, construction cost and the cost of energy produced, how this cost compared to other ways of meeting our energy and climate change goals, and affordability – i.e. the burden on taxpayers and energy consumers and the role that the government would have to play in delivering the project.

And the following were used to judge whether more costly schemes presented benefits that justified further study:

· Environmental impact – high-level view on schemes’ environmental impact using predicted habitat loss as an indicator of severity.

· Regional impact – high level view on impacts on ports, fishing and employment in the Estuary area.

Severn Tidal power scheme will be extremely expensive: report

Study of tidal power in the Severn Estuary criticised

Compensation package should be factored into costs for Severn barrage

Severn Tidal Power: http://social.tidaltoday.com/search/node/Severn+Tidal+Power

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Comment on this Story

ed_williams (not verified) says ...

Some joined up thinking and compromises applied at this stage would perhaps make the projects more cost effective and acceptable to the various lobby groups. Why does tidal = barrage? The tides on continental shelves generally run with plenty of force to turn well designed tidal turbines in free tidal stream flow, without significantly damaging estuary environments. Artifical islands could channel tidal flow more effectively into the turbines, they could maybe be constructed from old tyres chained together and provide breeding sites to improve fish stocks. The islands could perhaps be anchored to pin-piles supporting wind turbines that share the infrastructure to take power to shore or even to "factory" islands that would handle high power requirement processes that are too sensitive to site near coastal towns and cities ...reducing industrial baseload demand on the National Grid.

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Three barrage and two near-shore lagoon proposals shortlisted