MILFORD Haven Waterway is important in realising the vision of net zero industries in South Wales by 2040 says council’s deputy leader.

Cllr Paul Miller, the deputy leader of Pembrokeshire County Council and the council’s cabinet member for place, the region and climate change, made the comment at the inaugural Green Economy Conference in Swansea earlier this week.

The waterway is delivering a 40 per cent reduction of current Welsh CO2 emissions. He said: “If we get it right, it allows us to retain 130,000 jobs associated with industry in southwest Wales and unlock £30bn investment opportunities.

“The Crown Estate have set out their aspirations for floating offshore wind in the Celtic Seas, and they’re enormous. We need to get our region ready to harness the benefits of that opportunity and also to secure its delivery.

“It’s not just about floating offshore wind, it’s about what that green energy generation allows us to do onshore, and the additional opportunities that that presents. This year we are starting to talk about a potential hydrogen network across south west Wales: how can we create green hydrogen, use it to feed industry and southwest Wales, and use that as a product that decarbonises operations across the region?”

He said that the possibilities for the future spanned everything from producing green hydrogen for buses and transport through to examining how to use green hydrogen in industrial processes, saying it is important to recognise that some carbon will always be produced by our existing industries so it is important to look to the future of carbon shipping, capture and storage as well.

“Milford Haven Energy Kingdom is allowing us to do some of that.”

The energy kingdom is a programme of work funded by UK Research and Innovation as part of their industrial strategy challenge fund to explore the potential of zero carbon hydrogen alongside renewable energy to meet future energy needs of buildings, power generation and refuelling transport.

Cllr Miller also spoke about major companies like Statkraft investing in Pembrokeshire, and how the Celtic Freeport will be key to it. “We’re competing globally for investment, and the fact that they’re here is a good start. We need to create the right conditions for them to want to invest in this region ahead of some of the other opportunities that their key decision makers will be considering.

“It [Celtic Freeport] is part of that preparing our region for the opportunity and placing us to win those investment decisions.

“What it does, we hope, is create the right investment conditions, and allow us to see some of the benefits retained locally, which will then allow us to invest further in some of the infrastructure that we know is needed to support that industrial revolution.

“It’s game changing on its own, but taken together with a series of interventions working with our regional partners, it has the potential to really transform the regional economy.”