Severn Controversy

A world leader in hydroelectric engineering has renewed his dispute with a multi-national firm, over the rights to a £18.9 billion development on Cardiff’s environmentally protected coastline.

Rupert Armstrong Evans, of 200-year-old family engineering firm Joseph Evans and Sons, has been designing and building hydropower systems for more than 30 years, and is regarded as the brain behind every major leap in hydro-electric power creation since 1976.

He is in dispute with engine giant Rolls Royce and Atkins engineering consultancy over a design for the development of hydro-electric power on the Severn Estuary, along Cardiff’s coastline.

Mr Evans was approached by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), when they began their feasibility study into hydro-electric power generation in South Wales’, Severn Estuary in 2007. After 18 months of work he produced a groundbreaking new design dubbed Tidal Reef in September 2008. As part of the scheme multi-national engine giant Rolls-Royce was brought on board to consult over the design of the individual turbines to go into the scheme

Mr Evans, describing his scheme, said: “The other seven proposals for electricity capture on the Severn Estuary either defy European Union laws, and will result in 15 years of litigation with environmental organisations, or defy the laws of physics and simply won’t work.

“Atkins consultancy did a feasibility study on my plan and found it would generate 11 per cent more electricity than the Cardiff- Weston Barrage, the biggest of the seven schemes, and be £2 billion cheaper at £18.9 billion.

“Unlike other monolithic tidal barrages designed to hold back the full height of the Severn tide, at 11.2 meters, the ‘Reef’ works with only two metres of the tide, but slices off the power over a much longer generation period that is much easier to match to the peaks in electricity demand.

“The full range of the tide is harnessed by a large number of simple low-head turbines along the 12-mile route from Minehead in Somerset to Aberthaw in Wales.

“My structural envelope is a method of capturing tidal energy that is halfway between conventional barrages, which delay the tide by many hours to produce a head of water, and a tidal stream turbine that extracts some of the kinetic energy from a moving current of water. 

“The ‘Tidal Reef Concept’ grew out of the requirement, in my mind at least, that any project would have to be environmentally benign.

“I am proposing a radically new concept and then looking at the structures necessary to deliver that concept and lastly at the turbines which could be part of the structure. It is totally contrary to the usual approach, where a particular turbine type and performance envelope is used as the basis for designing the structures.

“The small difference in level also facilitates the safe passage of salmon and other fish through the special turbines, something that is not possible with conventional turbines.”

In March 2009, after a six month wait, a short list of the hyrdo-schemes, for the development of the Severn Estuary, was announced by Secretary of State for Business, Peter Mandelson and Secretary of State for the Energy and Climate Change, Ed Milliband.

They stated, in addition to the five main barrage and lagoon hydro schemes, there would be three embryonic new designs. Two were tidal fences, which are not being given serious backing due to the cost and lack of technology available to create them. The final project was announced as the Low Head Barrage, put forward by Rolls Royce in partnership with Atkins.

Mr Evans said: “With one hour to go to the announcement I received a phone call telling me my design had been excluded and they were only working on a turbine scheme with Rolls Royce and Atkins.”

 Rolls Royce, Atkins published a description of their Low Head barrage in March 2009. It is also designed to run between Minehead and Aberthaw. Their proposal states: “It is similar in structure to a conventional barrage but with a new type of turbine, not yet developed at scale.

“The turbine is likely to draw upon technologies from both tidal stream and tidal range schemes. The turbine design would generate electricity on both the incoming and outgoing tides.

“The turbine would operate at a lower depth and water level difference than conventional barrage turbines. By operating in this way tides would be held back behind the barrage for less time which should reduce the potential impact on large areas of the important Severn Estuary inter-tidal habitat and reduce the impact on fish.”

Mr Evans argues the only structural design which could support the Rolls Royce and Atkins Turbine is the Tidal Reef, which he designed 18 months previously. He also argues it reverses his top down approach and does not place the same emphasis on protecting the area’s ecology.

DECC spokesman Mark Malbas said: “All applications for funding were assessed by the programme board for Severn Embryonic Technologies against predefined criteria, the Tidal Reef proposal did not meet those criteria and was not funded. The Department wrote to the proposers outlining reasons for the decisions made.”

Rolls Royce has acknowledged Mr Evans complaint but denies any link to his work, and Atkins consultancy has published a statement saying their design is significantly different to the Tidal Reef and focuses on building tailored turbine technology for harnessing the power of the Severn Estuary.

Peter Jones, chief spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: “There are 70,000 birds which use the mud-flats and wet-lands around the Severn Estuary, if the Cardiff Weston Barrage scheme was to be finally accepted, it would cost £29 billion, generate five per cent of Britain’s electricity, but destroy 80 per cent of the habitat for these birds. This would destroy their numbers totally.

“When I heard of the Tidal Reef scheme we backed Mr Evans as we liked his approach to it from an environmentally sustainable perspective. His scheme would only see the loss of 25 per cent of the wetlands at most. We are also very interested in the embryonic schemes being considered by DECC.

“We expect the Low Head Barrage would see impact figures comparable to the Tidal Reef. The two Tidal Fence plans would see no impact on the Severn wetlands, but on the other hand could not produce any where near the same level of electricity generation.”

DECC plan to begin a second public consultation later this year following the formal publication of detailed plans by each of the eight schemes.