Tidal Lagoon Power said on Monday is has submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment report to the planning inspectorate for its Cardiff Tidal Lagoon, which will have an installed capacity of between 1.8 GW and 2.8 GW.
Tidal Lagoon Power expects to submit a full planning application for Tidal Lagoon Cardiff in 2017, and a decision is expected in 2018. The plant will include up to 90 turbines set within a 22km breakwater.
The proposal follows the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon which received funding of £200 million in February which will act as a scalable forerunner to the Cardiff project and is due to begin construction in the summer.
The company’s chief executive Mark Shorrock said the UK has the “best tidal resource in Europe and the second best worldwide” and the project offers a “sustainable way to make the most of this natural advantage”.
He added: “There is still a long way to go and many environmental surveys to undertake but we will work in partnership with all nature conservation bodies so as to understand, avoid, minimise and mitigate any environmental impacts.”
Tidal Lagoon Power has also confirmed that work is underway to deliver four other full-scale UK tidal lagoons at Newport, West Cumbria, Colwyn Bay and Bridgwater Bay.
The national fleet of six lagoons would together meet 8 per cent of the UK’s total electricity requirement and could contribute £27 billion to the UK economy, according to a report in July 2014 from the Centre for Economics and Business Research.