Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has vowed to revive plans to build a £1.3bn tidal power project in Swansea Bay after Conservative ministers said it would cost energy bill payers too much. He branded the Government’s refusal to hand the project a 90-year contract to generate the country’s most expensive renewable energy “the wrong decision for our economy”. Mr Corbyn added that it was “the wrong decision for jobs and the wrong decision for the future of our planet”. “Labour will back it,” he said. A Labour deal to prop up Swansea could resuscitate the project, which has struggled for years to gain favour in Westminster despite strong political support from the Welsh Government and the Labour Party. Mr Corbyn’s pledge at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool follows a promise to create 400,000 skilled ‘green’ jobs with new investment in fresh wind farms and insulation for homes. “Tidal power is a no-brainer for our island nation,” said a spokesman for Tidal Lagoon Power, the developer behind the plans. “We welcome Labour’s continued support for a tidal lagoon programme that starts with the transformational Swansea Bay pathfinder project.” The Labour pledge comes just days after the Telegraph revealed a boardroom exodus from the embattled developer after it failed to gain Government backing.
Telegraph 26th Sept 2018 read more »
A multi-millionaire technology developer has been named as the new investor in tidal firm Scotrenewables. Matt McGrath, who sold his firm Aircraft Medical for £72 million, will join the Orkney-based company’s board of directors, joining his sister Sian George who has chaired the board since February 2016. While still at university, Mr McGrath developed a tool which revolutionised anaesthesia and throat surgery, forming the basis of Aircraft Medical before its sale in 2015. Matthias Haag, project director for the Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) wind project, is also thought to be an investor. Scottish Energy minister Paul Wheelhouse said “I am delighted that Scotrenewables Tidal Power has secured private investment that will support its ongoing development so soon after it announced that its ‘SR2000’ tidal turbine in Orkney – the most powerful turbine deployed in the World – has already generated 3 GWh of electricity to the grid in the past 12 months.
Energy Voice 27th Sept 2018 read more »