Coal subsidies outstrip support for marine energy

The Conservative party yesterday accused the government of undermining its pledge to deliver a lower-carbon energy mix, by spending 20 times more on subsidising UK coal mines than it has on the emerging marine energy sector over the past six years, despite initially promising similar sums to both industries.

Answers to Parliamentary questions have revealed that more than £50m of the government's £60m Coal Investment Aid fund have already been distributed, while to date just £2.3m of the £50m Marine Renewables Deployment Fund has been spent.

Greg Clark, shadow energy and climate change secretary, accused the government of squandering the opportunity to cement the UK's position as one of the world's leading players in marine energy.

"At a time when we need to deliver a major expansion in renewable energy, it is astonishing to find that less than five per cent of the investment promised to give Britain a lead in marine renewables has actually been made," he said. " Yet more than £52m has been spent on subsidies to the coal industry over 20 times that which has been invested in clean marine energy."

He said the relatively modest financial support for the marine energy sector was symptomatic of the government's wider failure to accelerate the rollout of renewable energy technologies. "Faced with this neglect from the government, it is little wonder that Britain punches way below its weight on renewables - we have the third lowest contribution from renewable energy in Europe, despite some of the best natural resources," he said.

The Conservatives also suggested that the distribution of more than £50m in subsidies to the coal industry was at least in part politically motivated, noting that all but one of the coal mines benefiting from the scheme are in Labour constituencies.

The Tories are proposing diverting the £50m Marine Renewables Deployment Fund to establish a network of large-scale Marine Energy Parks that would be run on a commercial basis following a tender process.

Speaking to BusinessGreen.com, a spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) dismissed the suggestion that the funding for coal ran counter to the government's low-carbon strategy, noting that much of the investment was focused on the development of carbon capture technologies.

He also said that it was unhelpful to compare energy technologies at different stages of development, arguing that the marine sector had found it harder to access government funding because it remains at such an early stage of development.

He added that the government has recently moved to address this problem as part of its renewable energy strategy, with the launch of a £22m Marine Renewables Proving Fund designed to help wave and tidal energy firms get project proposals to a stage where they can access the larger £50m deployment fund.