8. Will the Minister make a statement on financial support for tidal energy projects in Wales? OQ58061

Yes, thank you, Janet. As I advised in my written question response of 18 March 2022, the Welsh Government is developing a marine energy programme. As part of this work, I am considering what funding will be needed in future years to support marine energy projects.

Thank you, Minister. The UK Government has committed to investing £20 million per year in tidal stream energy—electricity—and the First Minister has informed this Senedd that the Welsh Government is committed to developing a tidal lagoon challenge. However, it seems that tidal range options have been left out at sea. TPGen24 has been designed to operate both in sync with the rise and fall of the tide and, through smart controls, independently of it too. A 24-hour energy generation, a refreshingly simple, turbine-loaded 15 times 7.5 km three lagoon system located at least 1 km offshore, TPGen 24 is a small-impact, low-maintenance and high-yield renewable power plant that can perpetually produce green energy for centuries to come. Clearly, TPGen24 does have some exceptional potential, so will you explain what steps you will take to help to see tidal range projects such as these become a reality here in Wales? As we've said before, it's a cocktail of measures that are needed, and this fits into that cocktail well. Thank you.

Well, I'm not one to be putting down any offer of a cocktail, Janet; let's start from there. [Laughter.] Quite clearly, we need a whole range of measures put in place to ensure not only that we develop a range of tidal energies: tidal range, tidal stream, tidal lagoons, all sorts—. We're very pleased to see the UK Government stepping into this space, but we need to see the action following that up as well. I gave evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee this morning on this; we're really pleased that the UK Government is making the right noises and coming towards us, but Lee Waters has just written to the Secretary of State asking him again to set out plans for the UK Government supporting funding for the development of tidal range generation in the UK and, frankly, the grid to support it, the interconnectability to support it and a range of other measures that mean that those small demonstrator projects don't bear the burden of the connection into the grid that they need to take their energy off and that we can properly spread out the load of some of the really quite high-risk things that those projects are asked to look at.

But I can assure you—I know she knows already the Morlais project we've already given the grant to—we are very keen to explore this, particularly the innovative projects that Janet has just enthusiastically outlined, because, obviously, one of the big issues for us is to capture the global manufacturing market as well as the global energy market that goes with that and the jobs that go with it. So, I absolutely agree entirely with you, Janet—I don't say that very often—and we really hope that the Secretary of State will work with us to make sure that we have all of that in place going forward.

I thank the Minister and the Deputy Minister.