BBC Online ‘Plans have been submitted for a £850m tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay which could provide power for 120,000 homes for 120 years. Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay Ltd says it is the first step towards developing technology that could meet 10% of the UK’s electricity needs from the tides.
The six-mile-long U-shaped seawall will go from Swansea docks to near Swansea University’s new Fabian Way campus. It would take two years to build and create 1,850 construction jobs.
There would also be 60 long-term operational jobs with up to another 90 linked to visitor spending and it is hoped it could be operating by 2018.
Mark Shorrock, chief executive of Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay, said: “Until now, tidal energy has been heavily promoted by governments and environmentalists as an intuitive source of clean and reliable energy for our island nation, but the business response has focused on relatively small-scale tidal stream devices.”The UK has the second highest tidal range in the world and today we are submitting an application for a development that will prove that this resource can be harnessed in a way that makes economic, environmental and social sense. “Tidal lagoons offer renewable energy at nuclear scale and thus the investment of hundreds of millions of pounds in UK industries and coastal communities.”