Marine Renewables Industry

Perran Moon Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Perran Moon (Camborne and Redruth) (Lab)]

Meur ras, Ms Jardine. It is a pleasure to speak under your chairship, and I welcome you to your place. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this debate. Given the importance of the debate, it is again disappointing to see that so few Members from His Majesty’s official Opposition are here to contribute. But I am encouraged that so many Members from the Celtic nations of the United Kingdom are represented today.

Support for the marine renewables industry demonstrates not just awareness of our developing energy system up to 2030, but foresight into how we achieve energy security in the long term. Julian Leslie, the chief engineer at the National Energy System Operator—the body responsible for advising the Government on their clean power strategy—has described the 2030 clean power target as reaching the base camp of Mount Everest. He describes the next stage, decarbonising heat and wider industry on the way to 2050, as climbing to the mountain’s peak. What that means is that the next generation of technologies, such as tidal stream and wave energy, will need to develop and proliferate deployment at scale as our economy becomes increasingly reliant on electricity.

According to the Government’s “Clean Power 2030” plan, marine renewables—tidal stream, in particular—will be an incredibly useful source of energy that, as has been mentioned, can be deployed without correlation to other energy sources, therefore acting as a predictable component of our clean energy infrastructure.

[Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) on securing this important debate. The hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) refers to rolling the technologies out at scale. The only eligible English project that has the marine lease, environmental licence and network connection offer is in my constituency, on the Isle of Wight. Does he agree that local communities must benefit directly from projects in their areas—through direct jobs, obviously, but also through other indirect benefits?

--- Later in debate ---

[Perran Moon]

Yes, I entirely agree. Social value is an absolutely core element of a lot of these renewable opportunities; I am thinking not only of value going back into the community—including community ownership, potentially—but of the creation of good quality, highly skilled local jobs.

I echo the words of my colleague and neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), in championing Inyanga Marine Energy Group, which is based in Penryn. It is developing the exact cutting-edge technologies that we will require in the form of its HydroWing structure, which produces exceptionally high and reliable yields.

I also highlight the work of Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult’s marine energy team, which focuses on tidal stream and is, I am proud to say, based in my constituency of Camborne and Redruth, and in Hayle. As has been mentioned, according to the Marine Energy Council tidal stream technology can meet over 10% of UK electricity demand, with the UK leading in the planned installation of over 130 MW in its seas by 2029. We must show support for the commercial development of such marine renewable projects through greater funding from Great British Energy, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Tracy Gilbert) mentioned, and by ringfencing contracts for difference funding in AR7 later this year.

In the 20th century, the UK’s power system was dominated by coal; in the 1990s, that system evolved into the “dash for gas”. We are now pivoting towards the use of offshore and onshore wind, partnered with flexible and low-carbon dispatchable power. Generations before us in the last century would scarcely have been able to imagine what our energy system looks like now. However, I believe marine renewables represent immense potential, which we must support today to achieve the net zero goal of tomorrow.