The Government has published its responses to an Energy & Climate Change (ECC) Committee report of February 2012, revealing that marine energy is relatively low on its agenda in the development of low-carbon technologies.

On 19 February 2012 the Energy and Climate Change Committee published its Eleventh Report of Session 2010-12, The Future of Marine Renewables in the UK, which said that the UK could lead the world in marine renewables but asked several questions of the Government in its plans for the wave and tidal energy sector.

A key issue raised in the report was the relative lack of funding in marine energy despite the UK being a world leader in the industry and the potentially significant benefits that it could bring to the country.

The Government responded by saying that the Low Carbon Innovation Co-ordination Group’s (LCICG) Technology Innovation Needs Assessment (TINA) project has “worked to identify those technologies likely to be important in delivering our energy and climate change targets while also generating economic benefit for the UK.”

Marine energy was mentioned as being covered by the TINA process but the Government claimed that “there are other technologies, such as offshore wind, that are likely to generate greater lower carbon and long-term growth benefits to the UK.”

Marine energy therefore had relatively modest funding because “Government investment in low-carbon technologies needs to be proportionate to their potential benefits.”

The response goes on to outline the funding received the sector over the last two years, which includes £22 million from DECC’s Marine Renewable Proving Fund, the £20 million Marine Energy Array Demonstrator (MEAD) competition, launched in April this year, as well as the £103 million Renewable Energy Investment Fund and the £18 million Marine Renewables Commercialisation Fund launched by the Scottish Government.

The Government believes that “cumulatively, these schemes represent an appropriate level of funding to assist the sector’s development towards commercialisation.”

The lack of support for marine renewables from the Green Investment Bank (GIB) has also come under fire. As the ECC Committee was gathering evidence, a DECC minister said that wave and tidal power were “not within the initial key priority areas for the Green Investment Bank” but he expected that 20 per cent of the portfolio to be used outside of the priority areas would go to marine renewables. The minister added that marine renewable funding opportunities would not be available until “later in this decade at least,” once commercial projects appear.

The Government has responded that “given the current early stage of development of the marine energy sector, it is not currently a priority area for the Green Investment Bank.”

It argued that as a relatively early-stage technology compared with other green sectors, marine energy displayed relatively low commercial investability in mature infrastructure within the time-frame considered [to 2015]. However, the Government has pledged to reconsider priority sectors periodically with the GIB Board, while reaffirming the comments made by a DECC minister about money not allocated to priority areas being committed to wave and tidal energy.

The issue of funding for the sector beyond 2017 was also raised by the Committee’s report after the Government proposed increasing the level of support to wave and tidal energy devices that are deployed before that year. As little deployment is expected before 2017, the cost to the consumer will be insignificant but after that date the Committee suggested that “the Government will need to balance the interests of consumers against the needs of the industry.”

The report also called for “clarity” about the amount of revenue support the marine sector will receive beyond 2017 in lieu of falling costs due to technologies maturing, and that an announcement on the matter should be made in 2013.

The Government responded by saying that “information on revenue support levels will be provided in good time to allow investment decisions to be made” and that its policy will reflect maturation of technologies and falling costs.

Renewable UK criticised the Government in March this year for not investing enough money in the wave and tidal power sector, highlighting an investment shortfall of roughly two-thirds of the required amoint of £120 million for commercialisation. 

Given the shortfall, and that last week the chairman of the Environment Agency delivered a speech saying how the UK must not lose the initiative on wave and tidal power, as it did wind power, and must maintain its position as a global leader in the sector, is the funding currently being committed by the Government enough to ensure that the UK leads the way?