Mike Hedges AM Questions
Welsh Government Minister about Swansea Tidal Lagoon project
Local AM for Swansea East
Mike Hedges has queried the fairness of the system used by the UK Government to
assess the cost of the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon compared with Hinkley Point.
Speaking after Questions to
the Welsh Government Leader of the House, Mike said…… ‘under the current
arrangements, the Tidal Lagoon is not getting a fair assessment; for Hinkley
Point, the decommissioning costs have been capped, whereas no part of the
Lagoon project have been capped by the UK Government. We need a level playing
field with all aspects of the respective projects assessed on the same basis so
that a true comparison can be made. What we have at the moment is a system
which massively favours the nuclear option; what we need is a fair system that
allows the full and true costs of nuclear and green energy to be compared side
by side.’
Questions to Julie James AM 24 April 2018
Can I ask for a Welsh
Government statement regarding ensuring the fairness of price comparison
between the Swansea bay tidal lagoon and Hinkley Point? As the decommissioning
costs and storage costs for the Hinkley Point development have been capped,
we're not comparing like with like. If the building cap cost of the
Swansea tidal lagoon was capped at a level well below what it was likely to
cost, then it would make it a lot cheaper to generate electricity there.103
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Yes, indeed. Mike Hedges
makes an extremely important point. The UK Government has chosen to protect
taxpayers from exposure to all of the costs of waste and decommissioning
liabilities of new nuclear power plants through the Energy Act 2008. Our
understanding is that the total decommissioning costs within the funded
decommissioning plan, including the contingency, are estimated to be around
£8.5 billion, but given the costed index-linked, actual costs by the end
of the station's 60-year operational life could be as high as £116 billion,
once inflation is taken into account. Now, clearly, that's not a level playing
field. Discussions are ongoing between BEIS—the Department for Business,
Energy and Industrial Strategy—the developers and the Welsh Government about
the technical issues and actual costs associated with the Swansea bay tidal
lagoon, including on financing the project to include other equivalent costs.
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