Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of the relative costs of tidal lagoon projects compared to other forms of tidal power technology.

The Government’s extensive Severn Tidal Power feasibility study and the recent work as part of the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon Contract for Difference negotiations show that costs for tidal lagoons may be broadly comparable to other tidal range technologies. However, the detailed relative costs of projects will be dependent on their geographical location, individual design and financing models.

We have not made any comparative assessment of costs with tidal stream technologies, which are at a very early stage of development and have a highly different asset-life to tidal range.