Weekly Intelligence Brief

Tidal energy in the Solway Firth needs financial support

26 February 2010

Tidal energy in the Solway Firth needs significant financial support to proceed, according to a study co-ordinated by Scottish Enterprise, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and the Northwest Regional Development Agency (NWDA).

The study assessed the viability of energy extraction from the Solway Firth and gauged the current feasibility based on technical, financial, environmental and socio-economic terms.

Initial results have identified nine main options including: four barrage options, two lagoon options and three tidal reef options. For each of the identified options, associated impacts have been considered, split into technical, environmental and financial limitations.

Steven Broomhead, chief executive, NWDA said that the completion of this initial feasibility study is just the first step towards informing the decision making on the necessary activities to plan and implement the correct energy generation project in the Solway Firth.

The next step will be to raise the awareness of the potential with the market by presenting the report in the first week of March.

The Solway Energy Gateway is a proposal to extract tidal energy from the Solway Firth. Situated between Cumbria in England and Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland the Solway Firth with its high tidal range, an average range of 5.5 metres, is the second most powerful tidal estuary in the UK after the Severn Estuary.

As the third largest estuary in the UK and the second most powerful tidal estuary after the Severn, the Solway Firth has the potential to accommodate a range of renewable energy generation capacity, from under 100MW to approximately 6GW that could support the UK in rapidly moving towards its 2020 targets for carbon reduction.

Read more:

Solway Firth: http://social.tidaltoday.com/search/node/Solway+Firth

NWDA: http://social.tidaltoday.com/search/node/NWDA