Seascape Review- Barriers to Marine Renewable Energy Supply Chain Development in Welsh Waters

The purpose of this paper is to review the current status and barriers to the development of the marine renewable energy supply chain in Welsh waters. Results of a literature review will be discussed.

UK waters are host to a rapidly expanding offshore renewable energy industry. The UK Government’s Energy Security Strategy (UK Government, 2022[i]) has set a UK renewable energy generation target of 50 GW representing a fivefold increase compared to installed capacity in 2021. It is suggested that Welsh waters could provide approximately one seventh of the wave energy resource, one quarter of the tidal range resource and one third of the tidal stream resource requirements for the UK (DECC, 2011[ii]; Lewis, 2015[iii]).

    

[i] HM Government 2022 British energy security strategy. Downloaded from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1069969/british-energy-security-strategy-web-accessible.pdf on 8th December 2022.

[ii] Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), 2011. The carbon plan: delivering our low carbon future. UK Government.

[iii] Lewis, M., Neill, S., Robins, P., Hashemi, M. (2015) Resource assessment for future generations of tidal-stream energy arrays. Energy. Volume 83, 2015, Pages 403-415.