Our industry needs you!
28 Feb 11 - Neil Davidson, Public Affairs Manager
Our industry needs YOU! ... to join an online campaign in
support of marine energy.
Next month the UK Government will announce its budget - and with
it their future intentions for marine energy funding. Crucial
to us will be the £140 million Low Carbon Innovation Fund set up by
the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to support ALL
early-stage green technologies.
British Sea Power
On 2nd March RenewableUK will launch their SeaPower campaign
calling on DECC to allocate £70 million of this fund in support of
a Marine Energy Delivery Fund (MEDF), which will be used to support
the first marine energy arrays. This could be topped up (it is
hoped) with a further £60 million from the Green Investment Bank
when it is established.
It is a big ask, but we believe it is crucial the UK Government
provides significant backing to companies such as ours - to enable
us to leverage the private sector investment needed to deploy the
first marine energy arrays by 2014 and put our industry on the road
to commercialisation.
If established, we will be seeking up to £20 million from the
MEDF in support of a 10MW array.
This is where YOU come in
As part of their campaign, RenewableUK is asking you to sign an
online letter to your local MP - asking them to co-sign a letter to
Chancellor George Osborne and the Minister for Climate Change Greg
Barker.
It couldn't be simpler, and it takes no more than five
minutes.
- Register on the site http://embracemyplanet.com/campaigns/seapower
- Log in and send an automated email to your MP asking them to
co-sign the letter.
(OK, it is a wee bit fiddly, but bear with it...)
Your MP will be selected based on your postcode. So if you
would like to broaden the campaign and get more MPs involved, you
could always use the postcode of one of your UK friends or
relatives. Or even better send the email to them and get them
involved!