The new policy paper from the Supergen ORE Hub, and the Policy and Innovation Group at the University of Edinburgh, highlights the significant potential value to the UK if the Government invests in developing the local supply chain ahead of deploying tidal stream and wave energy technologies.
The paper sets out high and low ambition scenarios to assess the impact on economic benefit of increasing local content in specific areas of the UK supply chain, for example through targeted investment. A Higher Ambition supply chain scenario assumes increased levels of spend for domestic and international deployments retained by the UK supply chain. Conversely, a Lower Ambition supply chain scenario assumes less ambitious retention levels of UK content, and a smaller share in overseas projects.
The report covers tidal stream, wave energy and floating wind technologies.
Key findings
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In a High Ambition' scenario, tidal stream and wave energy produces over £50bn+ GVA to the UK economy.
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Tidal stream and wave energy could support over 80,000 jobs across the UK.
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The above figures are based on the UK deploying 6.2GW of tidal stream and 6.4GW of wave energy by 2050 and leading a growing export environment.
The Marine Energy Council is the voice of the tidal stream and wave energy industries and is committed to working with the UK Government to realise these significant benefits.
Policy recommendations
The paper concludes with three policy recommendations:
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Effective market support - Long-term continuation and expansion of a well-funded market support mechanism, such as the CfD, is instrumental to ensure the future deployment of these innovative ORE technologies, offering a clear route to market. Clear deployment targets and ambitions associated with the market support will improve investor confidence and provide visibility on the scale of supply chain requirements.
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Sustained innovation funding - Innovation funding is essential to ensure the UK remains at the forefront of the market in developing devices, subsystems and components to underpin the next generation of innovative ORE devices. This support needs to be sustained and targeted so that UK companies can continue to innovate, improve performance and reduce overall costs. While early-stage innovation should be supported and led by government funding bodies, incentives should also be provided to ensure that private finance can support developers approaching commercial-scale deployment.
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Modernisation of the supply chain - Modernisation of domestic supply chain capabilities needs prioritised to ensure that the entire UK supply chain is prepared to both support technological innovations in the products produced and innovations into the supply chain capabilities. This should include a particular emphasis on efforts to accelerate supply chain modernisation through the adoption of automation and digitalisation of manufacturing processes, plus undertaking targeted workforce skills and training. This modernisation of the supply chain will need to be undertaken in collaboration with the innovation sector with the aim of increasing overall competitiveness of both the products to be produced and of the volume manufacturing capability. This two-pronged approach will have the ability to create an ecosystem to enable the UK to both win and retain market share of strategic, high-value ORE subsystems and components.
The report makes clear that with the right decisions the UK can be at the forefront in developing, deploying and exporting marine energy technologies, and seize the significant opportunities created by leading this transition.
For the full report please click here.
