Document

LOW CARBON ECONOMYFINANCIAL TIMES SPECIAL REPORT | Thursday May 27 2010

www.ft.com/low­carbon­northwest­2010 | twitter.com/ftreports

Industrialpast showsthe way to agreen future

There are few areas of theworld with a history of energyproduction that compareswith the north-west of Eng-

land. It is a centre of the nuclearindustry, it hosted some of the firstwind turbines and it boasts severalinnovative low carbon technologycompanies.

The region hopes to emulate theindustrial achievements of the 18thcentury in a 21st century low carbonrevolution.

Environmental goods and servicesgenerate £10bn of revenue annuallyand employ 87,000 people, almost 3 percent of the workforce.

The region has drawn up a threefoldstrategy: to support businesses thatprovide green products and services;to cut emissions; and to adapt to thechallenges of increased rainfall, hottersummers and rising sea levels.

A glance at the figures shows howhard this will be. The region emitted57.3m tonnes of carbon in 2007, 10 percent down from 63.6m in 1990. Indus-trial emissions declined by a sixth,but transport emissions rose almost

50 per cent from 10.55m tonnes to14.93m.

Plans for a congestion chargearound Manchester, the region’s big-gest city, were soundly defeated in areferendum in 2008. The charge wouldhave paid for extensions to the city’stram and bus network. Nevertheless,the north-west has targeted a 33 percent emissions cut by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050. Government bodies,including the Northwest RegionalDevelopment Agency, launched a mis-sion in 2006 for the region to become aleader on climate change.

While local authorities can do a lot,in a centralised country such as theUK, government support can be vitalin winning a share of national pro-grammes or centres of excellence.Locally, Liverpool city region is seek-ing to be the first in the country touse tidal energy; Cheshire has one oflargest networks of low carbon com-munities in the country; Lancashire isleading on adapting to the impacts ofclimate change and Greater Manches-ter is pioneering low carbon building.

The region is host to the EnergyInnovation Centre at Capenhurst, theNational Nuclear Laboratory and theEnergus skills academy. The north-west has also been designated thenational leader on nuclear power gen-eration, with three power stations tobe built on the sites of those closingdown, the first for 30 years to open.

Prof Andrew Sherry, director of the

Dalton Nuclear Institute at the Uni-versity of Manchester, says: “Thenorth-west is in a great position interms of the nuclear resurgence. Ithas a nuclear capability in reactorand fuel design, manufacture, opera-tion and nuclear waste management.”

The university’s study of the behav-iour of graphite at high temperatureshas enabled some 1960s Magnox sta-tions to remain open beyond their offi-cial closure dates. Westinghouse, theUS nuclear company, sponsors a chairat the university.

Adrian Bull, head of stakeholderrelations at Westinghouse UK, says:“That decision was taken in our head-quarters in Pittsburgh. The chair ishere in Manchester because Manches-ter is one of the leading world centresof nuclear research.”Mr Bull says that

BNFL, the state-owned nuclear com-pany sold off piecemeal over the pastfew years, has left a big legacy in theregion. “The company has been bro-ken up but the skills and know-howremain.”

Urenco, which processes uraniuminto fuel, remains in Capenhurst,where BNFL had a base. The samebusiness park is also home to EATechnology, the former research armof the UK’s electricity board. On thesame site is Energetix, a fast-growingcompany that makes fuel cells, domes-tic boilers that generate electricitywhile providing heat and devices toreduce voltage that save up to 10 percent electricity consumption.

In Blackburn, Optare

Andrew Bounds askswhether nuclear energyand low carbon technologycan form a base for thedevelopment of the region

Inside this issueWind The north­west has beenoverlooked as a centre for offshorewind, but the region has a role toplay, writes EdCrooks Page 2

Smart metersAccuratemeasurement is aneasy way to helpdrive down energybills, writes AndrewBounds Page 2

Nuclear As hometo about half ofthe sector’s skilled

professionals, the region has anunparalleled advantage Page 3

Energy coast WestCumbria wants tobecome a centre forlow carbon energy,writes William HallPage 4

Tidal powerBuilding barragesacross fourestuaries couldproduce 5 per centof the UK’s energyPage 4

Continued on Page 2

Local opposition remainsthe largest stumbling block

The north-west is blessedwith a substantial renewa-ble energy source that hasbeen largely overlooked –the 6m to 7m tonnes ofwaste that is sent everyyear to the region’s increas-ingly expensive landfillsites.

The region producesabout 4m tonnes of munici-pal solid waste (MSW) andmore than 7.5m tonnes ofcommercial and industrialwaste (C&IW) a year,according to EnvirolinkNorthwest.

Most of the energy recov-ered from waste in thenorth-west is produced fromburning methane gas pro-duced by decomposition onlandfill sites. Sita UK, forexample, generates electric-ity for 36,000 homes fromthe methane gas it collectsat its Lancashire landfillsites.

However, this is about tochange. While UK electric-ity production from landfillgas has grown sixfold overthe past 10 years, its impor-tance as a source of renewa-ble energy is set to declinebecause of increasing Euro-pean Union penalties forlandfill and concerns aboutthe greenhouse gas effectsof methane, which is 21times more potent than car-bon dioxide.

The Isle of Man, just 80miles from Liverpool, givesa glimpse of the potentialfor generating a sizeableamount of the north-west’senergy needs from waste.About 10 per cent of Man’selectricity is generated froma recently built energy-from-waste (EfW) plant thatprocesses all the island’s60,000 tonnes of domesticand commercial residualwaste.

After a slow start thenorth-west is now in thevanguard of EfW genera-tion, with a series ofschemes ranging from acluster of small energy

farms in Cumbria, generat-ing heat and power from23,000 tonnes a year of agri-cultural waste, to the UK’slargest waste and renewa-ble energy project, handling1.3m tonnes a year of wastefrom the Greater Manches-ter Waste Disposal Author-ity (GMWDA).

“Few people realise thatwaste is virtually the larg-est source of renewableenergy in the UK,” saysColin Drummond, chiefexecutive of Viridor, awaste management com-pany which, along withJohn Laing Investments,will run the 25-yearGMWDA project. It aims torecycle 50 per cent ofGreater Manchester’s wasteand slash the volume ofwaste going to landfill from65 per cent to 15 per cent.

About 600,000 tonnes ayear of waste that cannotbe recycled will be taken tofour anaerobic digestionplants, which will produce8MW of electricity, and fivemechanical biological treat-ment facilities.

These plants will produce275,000 tonnes of solidrecovered fuel (SFR) whosecalorific value is more than50 per cent higher than

untreated household waste.The fuel will be trans-

ported by rail to a new com-bined heat and power plant(CHP) at Runcorn, 30 milesaway. When it comesonstream in 2012, it will bethe biggest and most effi-cient plant of its kind in theUK, and possibly Europe.

It will handle 750,000tonnes of waste a year andgenerate up to 120MW ofelectricity and heat, provid-

ing about a fifth of theenergy requirements ofIneos Chlor, the UK’s big-gest chlorine and causticsoda producer.

Mr Drummond says: “TheUK has been pretty bad atrecovering heat from waste.If the new Ineos plant wasjust generating electricityfor the national grid, itwould not be maximising itsenergy recovery efficiency.”

While Manchester is pro-viding the bulk of thetreated waste for the firstphase of the power plant,Viridor and its partners willhave to rely on waste sup-plies from other localauthorities in Lancashire,Cheshire and Merseysidefor Phase II. “If there is onething that the north-west isnot short of, it is waste,”says Mr Drummond.

Viridor is not alone. Peel,the north-west based prop-erty and transport group,has won planning permis-sion for a £215m powerplant at the proposed InceResource Recovery Park. Itwill use 600,000 tonnes oftreated waste to fuel a95MW CHP plant that couldprovide 16 per cent of thenorth-west’s target forrenewable energy.

Northwich-based BrunnerMond, the UK’s sole pro-ducer of soda ash, is plan-ning a £250m 60MW powerstation, in partnership withEon, which could produceenough energy for 45,000homes from 600,000 tonnesof waste.

Covanta, the world’s big-gest operator of EfW plants,is seeking permission tobuild a 35MW CHP at Mid-dlewich, which will befuelled by 400,000 tonnes ofrecycled waste and will pro-vide electricity and steamfor British Salt.

However, the problem formany of these deals is plan-ning permission. Whilethere is a growing economiccase for EfW plants, there isstill considerable localresistance from groups suchas the Cheshire Anti-Incin-erator Network, whichargue that these projectsare turning Cheshire intothe north-west’s rubbishdump.

Mr Drummond says hecould sign up £1bn ofinvestment in four UK EfW/CHP plants tomorrow if theplanning regime was work-ing properly. He wants thegovernment to set a targetof generating 6 per cent ofUK electricity from wasteby 2015. The north-west isturning out to be an impor-tant test bed for a largelyignored renewable energysource that has almost asmany fans as critics.

Energy from wasteSupply is plentifulbut planning is abugbear, saysWilliam Hall

Pointing the way: walkers and wind turbines share the South Pennines. Peel Energy plans more wind farms and is trialling carbon capture and storage technology Getty

‘Waste is virtuallythe largest sourceof renewableenergy in the UK’

Colin Drummond,Viridor

Money for nothing: Viridor energy­from­waste plant

in the north-west of England

2 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES THURSDAY MAY 27 2010

Developing a green future from the region’s industrial past

builds buses powered byelectricity and waste oil,while General Motors’ Elles-mere Port plant hopes towin the Ampera electriccar.

Peel Energy, part of theprivate property companyPeel Holdings, has builtwind farms and plans more.It is also trialling carboncapture and storage tech-nology and tidal power.

Acal Energy, based inRuncorn, aims to makecheaper fuel cells. Fuelcells, a type of low carbonbattery, combine hydrogenand oxygen with a catalystto form water and generate

power. The usual catalyst israre and expensive plati-num. The Carbon Trust isworking with Acal to findcheaper catalysts.

Electricity distributorsare planning for more local-ised generation and renewa-ble energy. The renewablecapacity in the region hasgrown from 255MW in2005-06 to 465MW in 2008-09,mostly driven by wind.

Paul Bircham, regulationdirector of Electricity NorthWest, says: “We are invest-ing £1bn over the next fiveyears in the grid in thenorth-west. We want tostart to future-proof the net-work ready for a low carboneconomy.

“In a low carbon worldyou cannot operate a net-work as before. You willhave a constant baseload ofnuclear power and thenintermittent wind and solarenergy – this needs a smartgrid, balancing local – notcentralised – generationand demand.”

Jürgen Maier, managingdirector of Siemens UK’sindustry division, says theregion would benefit from anew wave of offshore windturbines, with the Germancompany’s model partlydesigned in Manchester.

He says: “Up to 80 percent of the value in Sie-mens delivering wind farmprojects and keeping them

in operation for the next 20to 30 years will be addedlocally.”

With London two hoursaway by rail and Manches-ter airport offering moredestinations than any otherregional airport in the UK,access to international mar-kets is straightforward,says Tony Barnes, chiefexecutive of Bglobal, whichmakes smart meters thatmeasure electricity use bythe second.

“Being in Darwen has notstopped us doing businessinternationally. We havesuppliers in Brisbane, HongKong, Singapore and Chinaamong others.”

If anything is holding the

region back, it is skills.But innovative partnershipsbetween companies and thepublic sector are changingthat. Bglobal works withlocal colleges to train meterinstallers.

Stiebel Eltron, a Germanrenewable energy company,is helping set up a trainingacademy near its UK head-quarters on the Wirralpeninsula, near Liverpool.It is working with Scien-tiam, a local training pro-vide, on the £280,000 centre.

The company used tosend its installers of heatpumps, solar hot water sys-tem and micro electricitygenerators to Germany fortraining. Now those people

will be trained in the UK.Jean Llewellyn, chief

executive of the NationalSkills Academy Nuclear,says: “The nuclear industryin the UK has agreed to col-laborate on training andskills standards. I go roundthe world giving presenta-tions and they all want toknow how we have success-fully developed this collabo-rative approach.”

The Nuclear Skills Pass-port allows workers toswitch employers whileretaining their qualifica-tions from elsewhere. Gov-ernment policy is anotherconcern, with the industrywanting clarity over whichtechnologies to invest in.

“In the current climate,the only thing electricitygenerators will build is gas-fired power stations,” saysone executive.

Another adds: “Businesshas its foot on the accelera-tor. We need government totake its foot off the brake.”

However, Mr Maier says:“The UK has been puttingitself on the map for thepast two to three years inareas such as offshore windturbines and electric cars.

“We have announced wewill build a factory in theUK. Had it not been for aninterventionist policy fromthe government, that fac-tory could have been builtin Denmark or Germany.”

Continued from Page 1

ContributorsAndrew BoundsNorth of EnglandCorrespondent

Ed CrooksEnergy Editor

William HallFT Contributor

Tom GriggsCommissioning Editor

Steven BirdDesigner

Andy MearsPicture Editor

For advertising details,contact:Jim Swarbrick on:+44 161 834 9381;e­mail:[email protected] your usualrepresentative

Communitiestarget meansof production

Across the north-west, aradical idea is taking hold:for people to own the meansof energy production. Thevehicle for doing this, theco-operative, may be hun-dreds of years old, but pro-ponents argue it is ideal fora new age of localisedpower generation.

The first communityowned hydro-electric powerstation in the UK was builtin New Mills, near Man-chester, in 2008. The com-munity raised more than£90,000 to help buy anArchimedes screw to placeon a weir on the RiverGoyt. The 70kw plant gener-ates enough power for up to70 homes. It is sent directlyto a local retailer, ensuringit is used locally.

The Co-operative Group,which runs the store thatuses the energy, also pro-vided £45,000 of finance,while hundreds of local peo-ple bought shares. SteveWelsh, managing director ofH2Ope, the social enterprisebacking the scheme, says:“People want to be able todo something practicalabout cutting carbon emis-sions and reducing ourdependence on fossil fuels.This puts the power in theirhands. “People get a returnon their investment andthey are benefiting the com-munity.” Surplus proceedswill be given to communityprojects.

Nick Metcalfe, a health-care manager, and his wifewere among those whoinvested. “We saw some ofthe early publicity on it,”he says. “I walk over thebridge every day and it justseemed such a good ideaand such an opportunity todo something for the envi-ronment.”

After another successfulscheme in Settle, NorthYorkshire, H2Ope is aimingto build two more in Stock-port, costing £1m, one for a54kw plant and one for a75kw plant. They couldpower 130 homes and save9,000 tonnes of carbon diox-ide over their 40-year life.

Mr Welsh says: “It’s a lotof money to raise, but we’reconfident that there arecommitted individuals whoreally support alternativeenergy.”

Previous schemes carrieda 20 per cent tax break forinvestors. The govern-ment’s feed-in tariffs, whichpay money for each kilo-watt of power generatedfrom renewable sources,will also increase returns.

The share offer closes onJune 9. Chris Shearlock, issustainable developmentmanager at The Co-opera-tive Group, one of theworld’s largest consumerco-operatives, which isbased in Manchester. Hesays: “There are hundredsof weirs across the north ofEngland built for mills thatcould be used for similarprojects. We just need tospread the model.”

The Co-op has givenH2Ope £50,000 to host work-shops to help people in theUK build their ownschemes. Meanwhile,a n o t h e r c o -operative is thinking evenbigger, turning homes intomini power stations andlinking them with a micro-

grid around Manchester.Using social housing theHorizon Energy Co-opera-tive aims to generate £20min revenue from renewableenergy a year; generating250 megawatts of electricity.

Wind turbines and solarpanels will be built on hun-dreds of social housingproperties and high riseblocks will host wind andsolar power. Each propertyhas the potential to gener-ate up to £900 worth ofrenewable energy a year.

The resulting energy willbe pooled, with some dis-tributed locally and somesold to the National Grid togenerate funds.

The first initiative of itskind in England, the Hori-zon co-operative combinesthe EIC Partnership, a con-sultancy, and social hous-ing management organisa-tions. These include Stock-port Homes, GuinnessNorthern Counties and SixTown Housing.

Michael O’Doherty, ofManchester City Council,which is also involved indelivering a governmentplan for a low carbon areain the city of 3.2m, says:“Greater Manchester hasmore than 250,000 socialhomes, 10 per cent of thenational stock. So we canreally make a difference.”

“The easy part has beendone by fitting cavity andloft insulation in houses.But many have solid wallsand more radical measuresare needed to meet carbonreduction targets. “We are

looking at a 15-year pro-gramme and the fundingwill run into billions,” hesays. So it is vital for thehousing stock to generatecash. The European Unionis expected to provide somefunding.

Andrew Melchior, manag-ing director at EIC Partner-ship, believes the nationalgrid, which transfers poweraround the country, wouldbegin to fracture as genera-tion became localised. Heexpects a return to the 19thcentury, when small privateproducers served local com-munities.

At Horizon, combinedheat and power units, run-ning on renewable wood orother biomass, would formthe reliable baseload. Windand solar would then sup-plement it with energyexported when there was asurplus. “With sufficientsupport, there is no reasonwe shouldn’t end up pro-ducing energy output equiv-alent to one quarter of aconventional nuclear- orcoal-fired power station.”

It will not be easy: gov-ernment policy may changeand forming several entitiesinto one co-operative willinevitably bring tensions.

But Mr Melchior says:“Whether you are a believeror a sceptic on the issueof global warming, ourdependence as a species onfinite fossil fuels for over 86per cent of our energy gen-eration is unsustainable.”

MicrogenerationSmall­scale projectsmay provide abig part of thesolution, reportsAndrew Bounds

There arecommittedindividuals whoreally supportalternative energy

Steve Welsh,H2Ope

A clever way to drive down costs

The smart money isincreasingly followingBglobal, a smart metercompany.

After a slow-burningstart since listing on theAlternative InvestmentMarket in 2007, it appearsready to cash in on UKgovernment plans toreplace millions ofelectricity meters with“smart” ones that giveconstant read-outs of usageand allow consumers toexercise more control overthe energy they use.

Tony Barnes, chiefexecutive of the companyfounded in Darwen,Lancashire, in 2004, says:“The market has reachedtipping point and so havewe. We have gone throughthe pilot phase.”

That phase had itspainful moments and thecompany has yet to makea profit. Yet analysts thinkit will take off, as the

government moves toimprove energy efficiency.

About 29.4m “dumb”meters are likely to beswapped for smart ones,which communicate withcomputers using mobiletelephone SIM cards, overthe next decade.

Ironically, governmentinterest held up Bglobal’sprogress, says Mr Barnes.

“The government saidsmart metering was a goodthing, but didn’t say howthey would introduce it. Itheld our business model upa couple of years. No onein industry is going to payif they think they mightget it free. Then, last year,they said it had to be doneby 2014 for big users.”

That covers 200,000premises, about a third ofwhich already have aBglobal smart meter.

There are another 2.2msmaller business andpublic sector users, such asschools, that will have tomake the change, probablyby 2020.

The company is stayingout of the householdmarket, which has 27mmeters, for the time being,because complications ingaining access areaccounts for only 20 per

cent of electricity demand.Peter Kennedy, company

chairman and a serialentrepreneur fromLancashire, set up thebusiness after discoveringan invention at a tradeshow. The inventor hadcome up with a meter thatmeasured and transmittedthe rate of energy use. Hewas aiming at domesticcustomers who prepay. ButMr Kennedy saw anopportunity in businessusers.

He spun the business outof Utilisoft, his softwarecompany. While MrKennedy believed in theidea, it was not easy toconvince others. Mr Barnesnotes that “the energysuppliers thought it was agreat idea, but it couldalso break their businessmodel”. That model relieson centralised generation,

block-pricing and estimatedbills, with some meters notread for 10 years.

Company energy brokersfeared being cut out. “Sowe went to the largecorporates and said ‘wecan offer you a 100 percent accurate bill’. Ofcourse they wanted it.

“Once we had done anumber of these, theenergy suppliers realisedthe genie was out of thebottle. Three of the big sixare working with us:British Gas, Npower, andScottish and Southern.

“A lot of corporates haveenergy managers in placenow. They say ‘give ussmart metering or we willleave you’. They want thedata . . . You can start todrive down costs,” says MrBarnes. Vodafone, forexample, cut the £20mannual power bill at itsbase stations by £2m.

Even Bglobal has saved.It paid £36,000 annually topower its 10,000 sq ft officeunder a three-year deal. Asthat was coming to an endit installed a smart meter.It found that, because ofthe amount used byservers, about a third ofenergy was being used atnight when consumption

should be cheaper.The company presented

the evidence to itssupplier, whichimmediately cut its priceby a third. “We saved£12,000 a year by doingnothing,” says Mr Barnes.“That is a lot of money foran SME.”

With more homeownersand businesses generatingenergy from renewablesources, the potential canonly grow, says Mr Barnes.They could calculate howmuch they are generatingand exporting to, orimporting from, thenational grid at any onetime. They could then buyand sell electricity.

To win customers,Bglobal prices the meterscheaply, at about £300. Tomake money, analystsestimate it needs to install3,800 a month, a rate itbegan exceeding last year.It is now running at 5,000meters a month. About1,000 are installed – 1.4 percent of total electricityconsumption in the UK.

Asset finance companiesMacquarie and Barclaysbuy the installed meters asa long-term investment andrent them to electricitysuppliers. Bglobal receives

a service charge forreading and maintenance.

Bglobal increased salesfrom £4.5m in 2008 to£6.6m in 2009 but pre-taxlosses widened from £3.5mto £4.3m.

However, it is forecast tobreak even in 2010 andpost a maiden profit in2011. The market has keptfaith. It raised £7.75minitially and a further£4.75m in two equityplacings, as well as £1mvia the issuance ofconvertible loan notes inFebruary 2009.

“We are just startingout,” says Mr Barnes. “Wehave already helpedchange an industry. Wewant to be a FTSE 250company and we want tostay in Darwen.”

Case StudyBglobalAndrew Boundsreports on the smartmeter company

Tony Barnes, Bglobal CEO

Objectionsof localsblow farmsout to sea

Britain’s wind-power busi-ness is going through arevolution that is remak-ing the industry, as much

in its lesser-known regions as inits high-profile centres.

The north-west of England hasgenerally been overlooked in theexcitement over the future of off-shore wind power, which hastended to focus on the North Sea.

Yet the region still plays animportant role, especially in tech-nology and innovation. It isinvolved in all the biggest devel-opments in the industry: thegrowth of offshore wind powergeneration; the importance of thefull supply chain; the need fortechnological progress; and therole of wind as part of an energymix.

Above all, it is the wind indus-try’s move offshore that is shap-ing its future. The north-west hasshared in the first wave, withdevelopments in Liverpool Bayand off north Wales.

The Crown Estates, which man-ages government property onbehalf of the exchequer, recentlygranted extensions for the BurboBank wind farm in Liverpool Bayand the planned Walney windfarm off Cumbria, both of whichare run by Dong Energy of Den-mark, one of the world leaders foroffshore wind.

The fresh wave of licencesoffered this year in the CrownEstates’ Round Three, whichextends offshore wind power pro-duction into deeper water furtherfrom shore, includes one largearea in the Irish Sea that was won

by Centrica, owner of British Gas.Centrica knows the Irish Sea well;its Morecambe fields are its prin-cipal sources of gas production.

With a possible total capacity of4,200MW, the potential of thenorth-west alone is six timeslarger than the largest offshorewind farm now under construc-tion: the first phase of the LondonArray in the Thames Estuary.

However, offshore wind devel-opments have run into local oppo-sition. The proposed expansion ofBurbo Bank from 25 turbines to 90provoked grumbling among resi-dents. Much worse, however, hasbeen the opposition to onshorewind projects. The Scout Moorwind farm north of Manchester,England’s largest onshore devel-opment with just 26 turbines anda capacity of 65MW, faced fierceopposition before securing plan-ning permission.

Another proposed 12-turbinesite in nearby Oswaldtwistle hasalso sparked a protest campaign,even though Energie Kontor, thedeveloper, has cut the projectfrom the original 24 turbines.

Scout Moor shows that if theycan be built, onshore wind farmscan be lucrative. Peel Holdings,the developer, sold 50 per cent ofScout Moor to HgCapital, a Lon-don-based private equity firm thatspecialises in renewable energy,for £61m, a price of about £2m perMW of capacity.

Investing in new onshore tur-bines might cost about half that,roughly £1m per megawatt. Thedifficulty of obtaining planningconsent means that the supply ofgood sites is restricted and theones that have been given the go-ahead are valuable.

As a result, Britain’s windindustry is being forced offshoreinto ever more demanding condi-tions and a whole new set of tech-nologies and skills will have to bedeveloped to keep up.

For the new generation of off-shore wind turbine factories, the

east coast of England and Scot-land is a likely location.

The bulk of the planned £100bninvestment in offshore farms willgo to the North Sea, and turbinemanufacturing plants that couldbe built by companies such as Sie-mens, GE and Mitsubishi arelikely to be sited to take advan-tage of port facilities and existingskills and infrastructure for theoffshore engineering industry.

But, Juergen Maier, managingdirector of Siemens’ UK industrydivision, based in Manchester,emphasises that there are manyvaluable segments of the industryapart from the turbine factories.“There is a big opportunity inwind turbines,” he says. “The fac-tories may not be in the north-west but there is a whole supplychain. Our team in Manchester isdesigning the platforms and pro-viding the grid connections.

Up to 80 per cent of the value inSiemens delivering wind farm

projects and keeping them inoperation for the next 20 to 30years will be local value added.”

The north-west is also contrib-uting to the emerging understand-ing of the challenges created byconditions offshore.

Manchester and Manchester

Metropolitan universities are partof the Sustainable Power Genera-tion and Supply (Supergen)research consortium, backed bythe government and businesses,working on wind and other formsof renewable power. With its

strength in other forms of lowcarbon generation, includingnuclear, energy from waste, andtidal power, the north-west alsoshows how wind fits into anenergy mix.

As it delivers power only whenthere is a breeze, wind will alwaysneed to be backed up by otherforms of energy. Adrian Reed, aManchester-based director ofAltium, the investment bank,notes that “in the north-west,there are lots of energy combina-tions. It is not dependent on anyone technology, such as a bigcoal-fired power station. It isabout layering many things thatwork together.”

That, he adds, is a lesson thatother regions could usefullylearn.“For low carbon energy, it isnot a silver bullet, but silverbuckshot. To create the country’sfuture energy system, we need toeducate people about how thesetechnologies all fit together.”

Wind energyEd Crooks says skillsand technologies willhave to be developedfor the demandingconditions offshore

‘The energysuppliers thoughtsmart meteringwas a great idea’

Tony Barnes,Chief executive, Bglobal

Blade runner: against the trend, Burbo Bank wind farm in the Mersey Estuary is to be extended Getty

‘The combination oftechnologies is nota silver bullet,but silver buckshot’

Adrian Reed,Altium

Low Carbon Economy | North­west England

FINANCIAL TIMES THURSDAY MAY 27 2010 ★ 3

Low Carbon Economy | North­west England

Well placed to benefit from policy change

There is one sector inwhich the pre-eminenceof the north-west as acentre for low carbon

energy is unchallenged: nuclearpower.

Home to about 25,000 skilledprofessionals – about half thenational nuclear workforce –and with one of Britain’s long-est established sites, at Sell-afield, the region has an unpar-alleled set of competitive advan-tages.

For more than 30 years, thatposition would have been seenas a weakness rather than astrength. The nuclear industryhas been in steady decline and,as recently as 2003, the Labourparty’s energy white paperplayed down the prospects for

new nuclear power stations everbeing built, in favour of renewa-bles and more efficient use ofenergy.

However, a combination ofgrowing political awareness ofthe need to cut carbon dioxideemissions to fight the threat ofglobal warming and rising con-cern about imported fossil fuelssuch as gas, brought nuclearconstruction back on to theagenda “with a vengeance”, asTony Blair put it.

The Labour governmentbegan making plans to encour-age tens of billions of pounds ofinvestment in up to 12 new reac-tors in England and wales.

It is an irony of history thatthe strategy of that 2003 whitepaper is very close to the viewsof Chris Huhne, the new energysecretary, a Liberal Democratcabinet minister in the Con-Libcoalition government.

Whatever his personal views,however, official coalition policyis to support the new wave ofnuclear plants, creating a hugeopportunity for companies and

individuals with the relevantexpertise. The decades ofdecline have meant that exper-tise is becoming ever morescarce and, as demand picks up,the rewards for anyone who hasit are bound to rise.

With largely foreign ownedgroups leading the programme,including EDF of France andEon and RWE of Germany,there will also be tremendouspolitical pressure to use asmuch local content as possible.

EDF, which hopes to have thefirst of Britain’s new reactors onstream by the end of 2018, hasalready begun a process of try-ing to establish a British supplychain, rebuilding capacityeroded by the long years of inac-tivity. In those conditions, thenorth-west should be wellplaced.

Of the plans sketched out byEuropean power groups, onlyone location – land adjacent toSellafield in Cumbria – is in theregion. It has been selected as apossible site for a first plant bya consortium of GDF Suez of

France, Iberdrola of Spain andScottish and Southern Energy ofthe UK. RWE also has two possi-ble sites in the county, at Kirk-santon and Braystones, but theyare not seen as its priorities fornew construction.

Nevertheless, the area canexpect to benefit from increaseddemand for a wide range of

nuclear services, includingtraining, research and develop-ment, fuel processing and wastemanagement.

“The north-west is in a greatposition in terms of nuclearresurgence. We have the skillsand the universities have realexpertise in research,” says ProfAndrew Sherry, executive direc-

tor of the Dalton Nuclear Insti-tute at Manchester University.

“The north-west has experi-ence of waste and disposal, andthere is a real opportunity formaking a difference in terms ofnuclear skills.”

Jean Llewellyn, chief execu-tive of the National Skills Acad-emy for the nuclear industry,based in Cumbria, says the deci-sion by the entire sector to col-laborate on training and skillsstandards, with the backing ofthe North-West DevelopmentAgency, was an example enviedby other countries.

The academy has developed a“Nuclear Skills Passport” togive all employees and contrac-tors in the industry a physicalrecord of training and qualifica-tions, to agreed sector stand-ards, that they can carrybetween employers to improveworkforce mobility.

“I go around the world togive presentations and theyall want to know how we havedeveloped this collaborativeapproach,” Ms Llewellyn says.

“The Nuclear Skills Passportis a totally innovative approachdeveloped with employers torecord all the skills and trainingundertaken across the industry,with the aim of ensuring excel-lence.”

Sellafield, the waste storageand fuel reprocessing and manu-facturing site, which has 12,000direct employees and 5,000 con-tractors, naturally attracts thegreatest attention. It is also thehome to the headquarters of theNational Nuclear Laboratory.

Gerry McGill, deputy chair-man of Nuclear ManagementPartners, the consortium thatruns the site, argues: “Sellafieldand the west Cumbria regioncan be a significant asset to theUK. They are steeped andembedded in the nuclear indus-try, and there are skills therethat are in short supply butgreat demand.”

However, there are also othersignificant locations, includingthe Urenco UK fuel plant atCapenhurst, north of Chester,which enriches uranium, and

the Springfield fuel fabricationand uranium conversion plantwest of Preston, owned by West-inghouse, the US nuclear engi-neering group controlled byToshiba of Japan.

The NWDA estimates that thenuclear industry’s turnover inthe region is about £3bn a year,spread across about 300 compa-nies.

If nuclear new build doesindeed go ahead, as the govern-ment says it wants, that couldincrease enormously.

EDF’s plans alone envisagethe investment of about £20bnin new reactors over 10 to 15years; Eon and RWE couldaccount for another £10bn each.

That is before any of theexpenditure on a planned wasterepository, which could easilycost another £20bn.

Much of that expenditure willgo abroad. The UK has nodomestic reactor constructionexpertise, so will have to buyfrom France, Japan and the US.Even so, the potential forgrowth in the north-west is vast.

NuclearEd Crooks reportson a region withplenty of advantages

A ‘Skills Passport’gives staff a recordof training that theycan carry betweenemployers

Ready for a role in thenuclear renaissance

and manufacturing, wastestorage anddecommissioning, left thecomplex with a legacy ofunder-investment in bothpeople and facilities,

according to Mr McGill.Geography, too, is

against Sellafield. It has250 separate facilitiescrowded into just 1.5square miles, making it themost densely-populatednuclear site anywhere inthe world. There are sitesin the US, for example,that might have as manyor more facilities, butspread over areas ofhundreds of square miles.

Those problems have setNMP a formidablechallenge in its effort toimprove performance.Owned 44 per cent by URSWashington of the US, aspecialist in nuclear wastemanagement, 36 per cent

by Amec of the UK, theengineering group, and 20per cent by Areva ofFrance, which specialisesin nuclear power, NMPwon the contract to runSellafield in July 2008, andtook over at the site inNovember.

Its first priorities, MrMcGill says, were to makesure the operations werefit for purpose, to bringabout consistency inleadership, and then tochange the whole business.

With a possible contractlife of 17 years, whichwould be worth £22bn if itlasts that long, theconsortium has thestability to bring aboutsome real improvements.

Relations with theworkforce and the unions,which represent 100 percent of the employees,were one of NMP’spriorities.

“There has been an openmanagement approach onour part, backed up andsupported by the tradeunions,” Mr McGill says.

“We have signed up on apartnership charter, whichmeans that instead of an‘us and them’ conflictualapproach, we have a more

unified ‘in this together’attitude, and the unionshave been fantastic inworking with us.”

He adds: “We wereeffectively taking over aUK government managedestablishment that had itsown practices, and wewere trying to bring aboutsignificant change... thatwould prepare Sellafield fora new nuclear future.”

One indicator of progressis the mixed oxide (“Mox”)plant to make reactor fuel,a notorious failure that hasbeen a problem forSellafield since it wascompleted in 1997. Theplant is still operating wellbelow full capacity, but MrMcGill says its “efficiencyand effectiveness haveimproved by severalhundred per cent”.

A consortium of 10Japanese power companiesrecently reached anagreement to use the plantfor fuel production, helpingsafeguard 1,000 jobs.

“We have come a longway, but there is still along way to go. We are notexactly out of the woodswith it,” Mr McGill says.

There is pressure onSellafield from a squeeze inits budget – NMP asked for£1.6bn, but was allowed£1.5bn for this year – andthe company and unionsrecently jointly warned ofjob cuts, although theyhoped any redundancieswould be voluntary.

However, if the site candemonstrate a sustainedrecord of improvement,there are bigger prizes tobe won. One would becontracts for reprocessingspent nuclear fuel.

“The government has tocome to a number ofdecisions about nuclearpower, and one is: does itwant to continue withreprocessing? If it does, wewant to ensure Sellafield isin a position to step up tothe plate,” Mr McGill says.

Another would be tobring the proposed deepstorage nuclear wasterepository to the area. “Ifthere is a new deepgeological repository here,it would make westCumbria a very significantcentre for the nuclearindustry,” Mr McGill says.

Sellafield has long been aby-word for the failure ofBritain’s nuclear industry.Plagued by technicalproblems, it has suffered ahistory of negativeperceptions that dates backbefore it was rebranded in1981, when it was knownas Windscale.

Today, however, it has abetter opportunity thanever before to put thathistory behind it.

With Britain apparentlycommitted to new nucleardevelopment, in spite ofthe doubts of the LiberalDemocrat members of thecoalition government,Sellafield has the locationand the skills to play animportant role in thecountry’s nuclearrenaissance.

Gerry McGill, deputychairman of NuclearManagement Partners(NMP), the consortium thathas run Sellafield since2008, argues that the sitecould be “a significantasset” to Britain.

First, however, it has toprove that it can operateeffectively in today’sindustry, which is verydifferent from theconditions under which itwas created.

Like most long standingnuclear installations –which include most of themore troublesome sites –Sellafield was developed aspart of a weaponsprogramme in the 1940s.

Calder Hall, the world’sfirst commercial nuclearpower station that startedgenerating electricity in1956, is on the site. But itbegan life as a dual-usefacility providingplutonium for bombs aswell as power.

Those origins as agovernment facility, andthe subsequent periodunder state control as acentre for fuel reprocessing

Case StudySellafieldThe plant has theskills to play animportant role,writes Ed Crooks

If the site candemonstrate asustained record ofimprovement, thereare some big prizes

Bomb boon: Calder Hall began life as a dual purpose facility

Powerful people: coalition policy is to support a new wave of nuclear plants. Decades of decline have meant that expertise is becoming ever more scarce and, as demand picks up, the rewards for anyone who has it are bound to rise

4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES THURSDAY MAY 27 2010

Low Carbon Economy | North­west England

West Cumbriais eager to be acentre of power

West Cumbria, which has a pop-ulation of 150,000 and a £2.8bneconomy, badly needs a boost. Ithas lagged behind the rest ofthe north-west for a long time,as one after another of its mainindustries, such as coal, steeland shipbuilding, have disap-peared.

During the 1990s, about 11,000jobs were lost in the Barrow-in-Furness naval shipyard. Now,the proposed decommissioningof parts of the Sellafield nuclearcomplex, the area’s only otherlarge employer, which accountsfor nearly a quarter of westCumbria’s jobs, threatens theloss of two-thirds of the site’s12,000 strong workforce over thenext 10 years.

Rather than accept the inevi-table rundown of the region’snuclear industry, local interestshave formed Britain’s EnergyCoast Masterplan, “a collectiveeffort of several stakeholders inthe public sector”.

The plan was launched inJuly 2008 by John Hutton, thethen secretary of state for busi-ness. The Energy Coaststretches from Silloth in thenorth to Barrow-in-Furness inthe south.

The campaign considers Sell-afield to be the area’s biggestasset and believes that nuclearpower offers the best prospectfor west Cumbria’s sustainableeconomic development.

It remains Europe’s largestnuclear complex and was thesite of Calder Hall, the world’sfirst commercial nuclear powerstation. It still accounts for 60per cent of the UK’s nuclearfacilities and 40 per cent of thearea’s gross added value.

A £2bn package of public andprivate sector investment aimsover the next 20 years to trans-form the coast into a centre for

nuclear research and a nationalhub for low carbon and renewa-ble energy generation.

Sellafield has been chosen asthe home of a £250m NationalNuclear Laboratory that isbeing managed by a consortiumof Batelle, a US research insti-tute, the University of Manches-ter, and Serco, a UK supportservices group.

The University of Manches-ter’s Dalton Nuclear Institute isbacking a £20m investment inan education facility linked toSellafield’s British TechnologyCentre, which conducts researchinto nuclear reactor operation,new build, fuel processing anddecommissioning programmes.Energus, a £21m energy acad-emy providing training for thenuclear industry, was openedlast year in Workington.

There is also talk of up to

three new nuclear power sta-tions, the first of which, at Sell-afield, could be under construc-tion by 2015.

Harnessing local nuclearexpertise could transform theboroughs of Copeland, Allerdaleand Furness into centres forenergy technologies, rangingfrom nuclear decommissioning,to offshore wind farms and tidalpower.

The initiative could also playa role in the UK’s response tothe challenges of climate changeand energy security. Locally, ithas the potential to create 16,000jobs and boost Cumbria’s eco-nomic performance by £800m ayear.

Roger Liddle, a former adviserto Tony Blair who chairs Cum-bria Vision, a regenerationagency, believes that the projectis a “once in a generation oppor-

tunity” to establish west Cum-bria as a force in global energy.He reckons it could become thefastest growing sub-regionaleconomy in England.

West Cumbria is gamblingthat the renaissance of the UK’snuclear power industry willhave the same impact that the1970s discovery of North Sea oilhad on Aberdeen, a traditionalScottish fishing port, which hasreinvented itself as the oil capi-tal of Europe.

Thanks to offshore oil, Aber-deen is now one of the mostprosperous cities in the UK,with an unemployment ratebelow 2 per cent.

Jamie Reed, a Labour MP inCumbria and leading lightbehind the Energy Coast initia-tive, says that if there had beenno official response to the Sell-afield job losses, “it would havemade the pit closures of the1980s appear tame in compari-son”, and would probably haveled to an exodus of people “simi-lar in scope to the infamousHighland clearances”.

Mr Reed has been helped inhis campaign to reverse westCumbria’s long-term decline bythe support of Brian Wilson, anex-energy minister who nowchairs the Energy Coast board,and Sir Martin Holdgate, aformer government scientist,who chairs the Cumbria Renew-ables panel.

Mr Wilson was responsible forensuring that the NuclearDecommissioning Agency,which manages the £3bn a yearnuclear decommissioning costs,was based in Cumbria, ratherthan in the south of England.

Sir Martin headed a recentreview of Cumbria’s renewableenergy potential, which foundthat the area could meet a thirdof its energy needs from renewa-bles by 2020.

Cumbria’s coast alreadyboasts one of the biggest off-shore windfarms in Europe andis soon to become the home ofanother, at Robin Rigg in theSolway Firth between Englandand Scotland.

A range of other projects,from a £600m investment in gas

storage facilities off Barrow-in-Furness, to tidal power propos-als for Morecambe Bay, the Dud-don Estuary and Solway Firth,one day might rival the impor-tance of Cumbria’s nuclear out-put.

Meanwhile, the number ofemployees at BAE’s nuclear

submarine yard at Barrow hasrecovered from a low point ofless than 3,000 to close to 5,000.The yard, which maintains theUK’s capability to design andbuild nuclear submarines, isexploring diversification intothe civil nuclear sector.

Many of the building blocks

for west Cumbria’s renaissanceare in place.

Upgrading the poor road andrail access to the area remainsan urgent priority, as does theneed for a new 400kV electricitytransmission system to connectany new nuclear plants to thenational grid.

But west Cumbria is not a badplace to be these days.

Demand for energy isexpected to continue to rise, andthe assets that make the areaspecial – its nuclear facilitiesand its renewable wind andtidal power resources – are notgoing anywhere.

Britain’s ‘energy coast’William Hall saysnuclear, wind andtidal resources canrevitalise the economy

Job losses at Sellafieldwould have made thepit closures of the1980s appear tamein comparison

Jamie Reed,Labour MP

Barrow­in­Furness: a regeneration campaign includes the construction of gas storage facilities costing £600m

LED cluster Cumbrian companies hope to light the way

“There is a lot of focus about the need forwind turbines round here,” says PeterBarton founder of Ulverston­based ForgeEuropa, a small high­tech lighting company.But he feels strongly that reducing energyconsumption, rather than building morewind farms, is a “much better way” todevelop the UK’s low carbon economy.

Forge Europa is one of a cluster of solid­state lighting companies that have sprungup in south Cumbria to exploit the energysaving benefits of solid­state lighting (SSL)based on light­emitting diodes (LEDs).

LEDs are semi­conductor devices thatconvert electricity to light. They have beendescribed as the most significant advancein illumination since Thomas Edisoninvented the light bulb in 1879.

Forge Europa works closely with researchscientists, such as Cambridge University’sProf Colin Humphreys, who is developingextremely energy­efficient and long­lastingLED lights, based on the semiconductorgallium nitride. These can operate for100,000 hours, compared with 1,000 hoursfor a conventional light bulb. In the UK,where lighting accounts for 20 per cent ofelectricity consumption, widespread use ofLED lighting could cut the need for eightpower stations, says Prof Humphreys.

The energy saving potential of LED lightshas not been lost on development bodies,such as the North West DevelopmentAgency (NWDA) and Furness Enterprise.

They regard the 15 Cumbrian companies,with a combined turnover of £51m and 663staff, as a critical growth point in a sub­region that has lost most of its traditionalmanufacturing industry in the past 50years.

“One of the problems is that the politicalparties in Britain seem locked into the ideathat energy efficiency equals loft insulation,”says Stuart Klosinski, Furness Enterprise’sindustrial development manager.

“No one in the UK is focusing on LEDlighting to the extent they are in the US,Korea and Australia,” says Mr Klosinski.

Recent experience in the wind turbineindustry has shown how difficult it is toestablish a local manufacturing and supplysector in the UK, once production becomesfirmly established overseas.

The NWDA and Furness FurnessEnterprise has recently published “Lightingthe Way for Britain”, which argues forpublic­sector help by broadening the use ofLEDs in areas such as street lighting.

Local companies, such as Forge Europa,Marl International, Oxley Developments,Lumiere, McGeoch, and SH Lighting alreadyprovide LED lighting for the defence,transport, medical, office, industrial andpublic sectors.

Cumbria’s solid­state lighting sector datesback to 1942 when the UK Ministry ofAircraft Production moved Freddy Oxley’sradar business from southern England toUlverston to avoid enemy bombing in the

second world war. Since then, Oxley hascontinued as a supplier of defence­relatedelectronics.

But Cumbrian lighting companies, such asForge Europa, which has a staff of 30 andrevenues of £6m, are minnows comparedwith lighting industry giants such as Osramand Philips.

“One of the reasons we are working withthe cluster is because some companies feelthreatened by competition from largerlighting companies,” says Joe Flanagan,head of the energy and environmentaltechnologies sector at the NWDA. “At themoment, they are in niche markets wherequality is more important than price.”

But solid­state lighting is developing intoa mass market product, and there is a fearthat that it will come to be dominated bylarge foreign manufacturers.

Forge Europa, which won a Queens Awardfor Innovation in 2009, is growing quickly.Its new headquarters will be 100 per centilluminated by LEDs when it is completednext year. “A huge variety of industries arecoming to us because of increasing energycosts and government pressures onbusinesses to become more environmentallyfriendly,” says Mr Barton.

Nevertheless, he feels the UK governmentcould do a lot more to counter the state­backed investment in SSL by some of theUK’s competitors. About 30 per cent ofSouth Korea’s public building lighting will bereplaced with LED by 2012, and last monththe US Department of Energy announced anational effort to guide municipalities inevaluating LED street lights.

He argues that the UK governmentshould also push for the establishment ofagreed international benchmarks so that theUK is “not flooded with low­tech, poorquality imports”.

William Hall

Cambridge University’s Colin Humphreys

Abundant energy but cost to theenvironment is a stumbling block

The north-west’s first indus-trial revolution was built oncoal, which was abundantin Lancashire. Its secondcould be built on wind andwater, two commoditiesthat remain plentiful.

With four large estuariesin the region, engineers atthe University of Liverpoolsay that building barragesacross them could providemore than 5 per cent of theUK’s electricity and a solu-tion to the problem of howto increase the country’srenewable energy produc-tion.

Much focus has been onthe Severn estuary nearBristol in south-west Eng-land. Its tidal range is thesecond highest in the worldand it alone could provide 6per cent of the UK’s energy,though there are fears forits wetlands.

But the north-west couldequal it with four smallerschemes: the Solway Firthon the border with Scot-land, Morecambe Bay, andthe rivers Mersey and Dee.

Most work has been doneon the Mersey. Peel Hold-ings, the property andenergy company that ownsthe ports at the river’smouth and much land alongit, has produced a feasibil-ity study for a scheme.

It is set to apply for plan-ning permission withinmonths but the battle couldbe hard, as environmental-ists fear that a barragecould alter the estuary’secosystem.

Tidal barrages do notemploy new technology.France built one at LeHavre in the 1960s. It was a

test to see whether the ideaworked. However, the coun-try opted for nuclear gener-ation instead. Engineers saythat, while there was a bigfall in wetlands and birdpopulations in the estuaryat first, the ecosystem hasnow adjusted.

The Liverpool Universityresearch, in collaborationwith Proudman Oceano-graphic Laboratory, sug-gests that the four barragescould meet about half of thenorth-west’s electricityneeds.

Funded by the NorthwestRegional DevelopmentAgency, the team investi-gated different types of tidalpower, including barrages –which run from one bank ofan estuary to another andguide water flow throughsluices and turbines – usingadvanced computer model-ling.

They found that the mosteffective mode of producingelectricity was “ebb genera-tion”, which involves col-lecting water as the tidecomes in and releasing thewater back through tur-bines once the tide has goneout.

However, “two-way gener-ation”, which produces aless intense burst of power

but is less damaging to theenvironment, could be aviable alternative.

Prof Richard Burrows,from Liverpool University’sDepartment of Engineering,says: “The best places toharness tidal power atmeaningful scales are areaswith a high tidal range suchas estuaries. Tidal barrageswould alter the naturalmotion of an estuary’s flow

as the sea level changes,usually by holding back thewater at high tide and thenreleasing it when the tidehas subsided.

“This water level differ-ence across the barrage issufficient to power turbinesfor up to 11 hours a day,and, in terms of the fournorth-west barrages, theenergy extracted could sup-ply 5 per cent of UK elec-tricity generation needs.”

He says that, apart fromthe environment, cost is thebig stumbling block – theywould be public infrastruc-ture projects on the scale ofmotorways or big bridges,he points out.

Judith Wolf, from theProudman OceanographicLaboratory, says: “Theproblem with renewableenergy generation is that itis intermittent; electricitycan only be generated inline with the tidal flow.However, the tide arrives inthe north-west around fourhours after the Severn, sotogether they couldincrease the number ofdaily generation hours.

“Other tidal energyschemes around the UKcoast could extend the gen-eration window.”

The NWDA has also sup-ported a study into a bar-rage across the Duddonestuary in Cumbria. Previ-ous studies have suggestedit could generate 100MW ofenergy – enough to powerabout 200,000 homes – andprovide a new transportlink that would cut 17 milesoff the journey betweenBarrow and Millom.

Bendalls Engineering,part of the Carrs group inCarlisle, is a world leader in

wave-power technology. Itmanufactured parts for“Sea Flow” and “Seagen” –the world’s first large scalegrid-connected tidal tur-bines.

Marine current turbinesare newer technology. Theyare driven by the water cur-rents beneath the surface,which give a consistentenergy supply.

Bendalls assisted withdetailed design and com-pleted all fabrication,assembly and in-house test-ing of the “Sea Flow”machine. It has been operat-ing off north Devon nearLynmouth since 2003.

More recently, Bendallshas been involved in themanufacture of the top sup-port structure and hydrau-lic lift mechanism for “Sea-gen”, a 1.5MW tidal turbineat Strangford Lough south-east of Belfast. “Seagen” isthe world’s first large-scalegrid-connected tidal turbineof its type and is workingwell.

Norman Bettison, manag-ing director of Bendalls, is aveteran of the renewableenergy sector in the UK.

Having seen its lead inonshore wind turbines dis-appear in the 1980s, he saysthe country must not repeatthe mistake with offshorewind.

The company hasinvested heavily in wavepower but, without an indi-cation from the govern-ment, Mr Bettison says thesector will not take off, asother investors will holdback. Unlike nuclear, tidaland wave power is anuntested technology.

The Labour and LiberalDemocrat parties promised“green investment banks”that might fund suchschemes. But the politicaluncertainty caused by thecoalition between the Con-servatives and the LiberalDemocrats could mean theimpetus for tidal power isebbing.

Tidal powerAndrew Boundsasks whetherestuarine barriersare a viablesolution

French test: Le Havre’s tidal barrage was built in the 1960s to see whether the idea worked

‘Tidal barrages alterthe natural motionof an estuary’s flowas the sea levelchanges’

Richard Burrows,Liverpool University