Staff to assess specifications, offers and make recommendations.
Main Contractor
Tata Power, Mumbai, India
Electricity de France (EDF), Paris, France
UK Government (If Power Utility nationalisation is commenced)
Other competent contractor with relevant experience
Sub - Contractor’s Staff
Civil Engineering
Channels with bascules, locks, piers and tunnels
Design & Supply contracts
Costain UK (Relevant experience -Thames barrier)
Main frame units (MFU) including 2 main cranes, root tubes
Shipping Transit Channel with 54m bascule closure
Shipping Transit Channel with 27m bascule closure
Marine Life Transit Channel with 4m bascule closure
Other competent contractors with relevant experience
Water-turbine / generator supplier
Voith, Heidenheim, Germany
Sub-contract
Other competent contractors with relevant experience
Storage Battery supplier
Tesla, USA
Other competent contractors with relevant experience (including Japanese)
Barrage Study contracts
Marine studies (Present day up to year 2100) including: -
Channel geography, tidal currents , recommended T-G power rating v location)
Atlantic Ocean changes including effect of Climate Change and Tsunami.
Barrage operator staff
Power Station Control room staff
Marine shipping control staff
Specialist installation and maintenance staff
Tug/barge used for MFU installation
Crane used to carry T-G boxes and other very large loads
Machine Hall 15 – Commercial activities
This Machine Hall is made available for the potential it offers in supporting the exploitation of related commercial opportunities. A prime intention is to support opportunities that could provide lasting long-term employment in South Wales. Two are worth considering immediately.
An electricity-generation sub-station - Operated by Tata Power
An overview shows the close proximity of large industrial centres of electricity users - Swansea, Cardiff, Newport, Gloucester and Bristol - makes power distribution from an Aberthaw Tidal Power Station very simple. In particular heavy industry, such as steel production in Port Talbot and Llanwern, would benefit by the electricity produced by the barrage at a strike price of a little over £30 per megawatt hour. This would confer a significant advantage on UK industry over worldwide competition.
Tata Steel currently operate steel making plant in Port Talbot and Newport (Llanwern) that will fail financially unless a source of low-cost electricity is found. 'Supported' high cost electricity is not a way forward. It has to be ‘real’ and cheap.
A particular Tata investment in a segment of the Aberthaw Tidal Power Station, such as Machine Hall 15, could be to the advantage of all parties. The introduction of dedicated power lines delivering electricity to the Port Talbot plant from one or more designated water-turbine/generator units owned and run by Tata staff would be profitable and secure. This would significantly help make the Tata steel making financially sustainable and perhaps give this sector of UK steel a competitive advantage.
Tata Power in Mumbai, India have 8,000 megawatts of generating plant and are the largest integrated power supplier in that country. It has the technical and commercial ability, knowhow and balance sheet to make an investment in Machine Hall 15.
Industrial storage-battery development and testing
Machine Hall 15 could provide a testing facility for storage-batteries up to 480MW.
In addition to meeting the growing market need for facilities in which to develop industrial sized storage batteries it could provide a base for Sodium-ion battery development in the UK.
Professor Zhenan Boa, of Stanford University California, has developed a Sodium-ion based material with a comparable energy density to conventional Lithium-ion. A sodium-ion battery ‘costing less than 80% of a Lithium-ion battery with the same power density’ is a prize worth entering the R&D race for. The Aberthaw barrage provides a large, security-monitored, working-environment suitable for commercially sensitive testing. UK is already in this scientific field and may well have an interest. The close proximity of Aberthaw to Cardiff airport could favourably influence investment from the USA in the UK and provide worthwhile opportunities for the workforce in South Wales.