A proposed £25billion tidal energy barrage in the Severn Estuary has failed to prove it could deliver the benefits its backers claimed, according to a new government report.
Proponents of the 11-mile long barrage, which would stretch between Penarth on the Welsh coast and Weston Super Mare on the English side of the channel, had claimed it could generate up to 5% of the UK’s electricity.
But a new report shows both the Government and the Energy and Climate Change committee remain unconvinced of the benefits the Halfren Power project said it would bring.
The report warns such a project would need state support for around 30 years – twice that of an offshore wind farm – through guaranteed payments for its output, and warns that the environmental damage of the project could be significant.
“There is a high risk of unintended and possibly damaging consequences,” the report noted. “Hafren Power has not presented sufficient credible evidence relating to estuary morphology, impacts to habitats and upstream fluvial flood risk.”
The company also failed to provide reassurance that ports in the Severn Estuary would be able to continue operating with the barrage in place, and called for the company to provide detailed evidence to back up the economic and jobs benefits it claimed the project would provide.
“Robust and credible evidence is fundamental to building trust and reassuring key stakeholders, particularly for an unprecedented and huge project such as the proposed Hafren Power barrage,” the report found.
“We support the calls for further evidence and technical detail of the proposal in order to arrive at an informed decision.”
Earlier proposals for a barrage were axed in 2010 because of the cost, but the Government said it remained open to private projects in the Severn.
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