The Party of Wales (Plaid Cymru) has suggested to Welsh ministers to take an equity stake in the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon scheme.
The stake proposal, worth around £52 million, was suggested by the Plaid Cymru’s spokesperson Simon Thomas today at the Party’s weekly press conference, BBC reports .
The proposed Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay (TLSB), worth £1.3 billion is still awaiting the subsidy agreement with the UK government, after it had received a positive feedback in January from the government-commissioned review led by UK’s former energy minister Charles Hendry.
“If Hendry is accepted by the UK government then the actual project is deliverable. If this then becomes a technology that Wales is going to specialize in, and we’re going to see further tidal lagoons, then the Welsh government will actually benefit from a UK subsidy,” Thomas said for BBC.
In addition to the subsidy agreement with the government, the proposed Swansea Bay tidal lagoon needs to receive the marine license from the Welsh government’s regulator body Natural Resources Wales (NRW) for the marine works to start.
This may present a challenge for the developer behind the project, Tidal Lagoon Power, as it is disputing the NRW’s figures of the potential effects the project could have on fish death rates in the area.