Tidal Energy Projects

Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Climate Change – in the Senedd at 2:23 pm on 18 May 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 2:23, 18 May 2022

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.