Natural Energy Wyre Ltd has revealed plans to build a 600-metre barrage across the river Wyre near Fleetwood in Lancashire that could generate power for 50,000 homes.
The news follows the announcement last week that energy and climate change secretary Amber Rudd has granted development consent for the planned £1bn tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay.
This latest project aiming to generate electricity from the UK’s tide is moving forward after a landmark deal was signed with the Duchy of Lancaster granting Natural Energy Wyre Ltd exclusive rights to build a tidal barrage across the river Wyre.
The planned barrage will contain six turbines with an installed capacity of 90MW/hr of electrical energy and would cost around £200m to construct.
The company will now be seeking £10m of funding needed to take the project through planning. Talking to Construction Manager, Bob Long, managing director of Natural Energy Wyre Ltd, said: “It’s taken seven years to arrive at this point, but now we know we have this agreement, we can seek funding and planning.”
Long takes encouragement from the Swansea decision and sees it as a sign that the UK may be ready to invest in tidal power: “The UK is well placed to capitalise on tidal power as we are an island, with large tidal ranges and we are fortunate to have a large number of estuaries. The Swansea announcement has given confidence to the technology and to the funding streams,” he says. “It gives us encouragement as we have the same hurdles to overcome as in Swansea.”
Barrages are significantly cheaper to build than lagoons
Long also points out that barrages are significantly cheaper to build than lagoons as less structure needs to be built: “As the barrage is only 600 metres long delivery costs will be significantly lower than with a lagoon; we don’t cost as much money to answer the same questions [as Swansea].”
He believes that both lagoons and tidal barrages have a role to play in providing green energy to the UK: “Mark [Shorrock, chief executive of Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay] has done a stalwart job in nurturing the process, he will prove that tidal lagoons are feasible and plausible. We will prove that barrages can be built with a limited environmental impact.”
The Wyre project could lead to several other estuaries around the UK, as long as the environmental impact can be demonstrated to be at a reasonable level, says Long: “This project will act as a case study – if the impact is less than the Environment Agency’s rating of ‘significant’ we will be delighted,” he says. “Our environmental impact study will open a huge amount of doors around the UK.”
However, the scheme and the concept of tidal barrages has been criticised by the RSPB, with Tim Melling, a senior conservation officer, reported on the BBC website as saying: “Climate change is the biggest threat to the natural environment so it’s vital we invest more in renewable energy. But tidal barrages are not the right option and this proposed scheme on the Wyre would cause major damage to the estuary.
“A barrage would knock the tidal system out of sync and destroy this prime feeding habitat by reducing the size of the feeding areas and making them available for less time.”
Along with this proposed barrage at Wyre, and the lagoon at Swansea, Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay is planning five further tidal lagoons around the UK.
