City region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram asks team of experts to devise a business case for the Mersey barrage that could help the city region become zero carbon by 2040. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool city region could be zero carbon by 2040 if the Government gives the green light to the multi-billion pound Mersey barrage project.
City region Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram is pushing on with the scheme that would see the tidal power of the River Mersey harnessed to provide energy for up to one million homes.
Mr Rotheram has tasked a team of experts, left by Arup and including ABPmer, Grant Thornton and BECG, to put together a business case over the next 12 months which will be presented to the Government for approval.
He claims a tidal energy scheme for the River Mersey could have the potential to generate up to four times the energy of all of the wind turbines in Liverpool Bay, which would be enough to power up to a million homes, 500 football stadiums, or send an electric train around the world 3,554 times.
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“Tidal power has the potential to generate a huge amount of renewable energy, helping us to hit our target of being zero carbon by 2040, while boosting economic growth for everyone in our city region, and creating thousands of jobs in its design, construction and beyond,” said Mr Rotheram.
“Devolution gives us the scale and powers necessary to pursue this kind of transformative project and the opportunity to shape the skills we need for our local economy, which means we can ensure that our children and young people develop in the areas they would need to benefit from these jobs.
“If we are successful in delivering this project, we would become a global leader in tidal technology and export our expertise around the world.
“The next stage in the project is to prepare a detailed and robust technical, financial and environmental assessment of the viability of tidal energy here in the city region, to provide the definitive evidence for its feasibility.”
An outline business case will provide the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority with a detailed and robust technical, financial, economic and environmental assessment of the viability of tidal energy, allowing for a further decision to be made following its completion next year, as to whether the scheme should be developed further.