Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 19
19
Deferred
Paragraph: 88
Justify reduced tidal stream funding and consider longer CfDs with a 1GW target.
Recommendation
The Government should justify the rationale for lowering the ringfenced amount of funding for tidal stream in the latest Contracts for Difference auction, and we invite the future Energy Security and Net Zero Committee to consider that rationale and to challenge it if it thinks necessary. We also ask the Government to consider longer term CfDs for tidal energy, reflecting the longer lifecycle for tidal energy compared to, for example, offshore wind turbines. Industry has requested the setting of a target of tidal stream deployment in order to send further market signals. We ask the Government to consider setting a 1GW target for tidal stream by 2035.
Government Response Summary
The government's response states it plans to publish a Biomass Strategy and an updated bioenergy resource model, without addressing any aspect of the recommendation regarding tidal stream energy funding or targets.
Paragraph Reference:
88
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government
Deferred
62. The Government plans to publish the Biomass Strategy before summer recess. The Strategy will set out ranges of potential future sustainable biomass availability to the UK, based on updated modelling. 63. Future feedstock availability will depend on a range of factors, including domestic and global land availability, sustainability policies that stipulate supply chain GHG emissions thresholds, government policies and market developments in the UK and in other countries, as well as the prices different end users are willing to pay for the biomass feedstock. 64. To support the assessment of future biomass availability, the Government has updated the UK and Global Bioenergy Resource Model, which will be published alongside the upcoming Biomass Strategy. This was used to develop illustrative scenarios of potential future biomass availability. Given the complexity of the biomass supply system and significant uncertainty of a number of key factors detailed earlier, they do not represent exact limits of biomass availability, but provide a set of plausible future scenarios. More detail will be published in the forthcoming Biomass Strategy.