Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government how they are working across
departmental boundaries to ensure that the effectiveness of
investments in clean energy is being maximised.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy () (Con)
Driving investment into UK clean energy is a priority for this
Government to improve energy security, reduce emissions and boost
jobs and growth across the country. We are backing our targets
and ambitions with policy and targeted funding. Since March 2021,
the Government have committed £30 billion of investment in
domestic green policies. The policies are already expected to
drive an unprecedented £100 billion of private investment and to
support 480,000 jobs by 2030.
(CB)
I thank the Minister for his response. There are a number of
supplementary questions I could ask around the lack of joined-up
government on clean energy investments, but the one on which I am
keen to hear more is what we will do with excess clean
electricity to have maximum effect for reaching our environmental
goals. Specifically, how will we use excess electricity to create
hydrogen for fertilisers? We talk a lot about hydrogen being used
in the home for heating, which I do not think is a good idea, or
hydrogen for transport, but hydrogen has a use in fertiliser
production. If Defra and BEIS work together, we could become at
the forefront of that industry of clean, green, fertiliser
production at a time when prices are sky-high and we need
alternatives.
(Con)
The noble Baroness makes a very good point. One of the policy
challenges we will have is how to use some of what she refers to
as excess clean energy. With renewables being intermittent, there
are times with large amounts of available spare electricity and
other times when there is not enough. Hydrogen could clearly play
a key role in that, and one of the uses of that excess
electricity is to produce clean hydrogen.
(Con)
My Lords, this year’s Climate Change Committee report to
Parliament on climate adaptation found that planning for global
warming levels of 2 degrees centigrade was not happening, and
that the UK’s energy, water, digital and transport providers are
struggling to take account of climate-related risks to connected
infrastructure systems, which could cause cascading failures.
When do the Government intend to act on the priorities identified
by the Climate Change Committee, particularly in addressing risks
to critical energy infrastructure?
(Con)
Of course, we liaise very closely with the Climate Change
Committee. There is a huge amount of investment going into energy
infrastructure. I have referred in the House before to the amount
of change that will happen in our energy infrastructure as we
diversify the grid. My noble friend makes a good point.
(Lab)
Does the noble Lord agree that cleaning up energy is just as
important as clean energy? As he knows, I have an interest in
carbon capture and storage. So many times over the past few years
has the investment community been marched up to the top of the
hill and then disbanded. Does he agree with me that a strong
signal needs to be given to that community that carbon capture,
utilisation and storage is a key part, going forward, of clean
energy?
(Con)
Indeed, I agree with the noble Baroness, which is why we are
supporting the deployment of CCUS with our £1 billion
infrastructure fund.
(LD)
My Lords, one of the main failures of departmental co-operation
is the paucity of recharging points for EVs in rural areas. There
are absolute wastelands. Is the Minister’s department, which is
in charge of decarbonisation, really pushing the Department for
Transport to makes sure that the distribution of charging points
is effective, large and in rural areas?
(Con)
As the noble Lord correctly says, the rolling out of charging
points is the responsibility of the DfT, but I know that it has
an extensive programme of grant support. Clearly some local
authorities perform better than others but, if we are to continue
the rollout of electric cars, an extensive network of charging
points is vital.
(Con)
My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. I
ask the Minister to confirm that he agrees that clean energy
includes nuclear energy, and that the failure of wind and solar
power to make any real contribution in current extremely cold
conditions strengthens the case to accelerate plans to bring
forward commercial schemes to deploy SMR technologies, including
Japan’s high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology, whose
demonstrator has been running safely for more than 10 years.
(Con)
Without getting into supporting particular types of technology, I
certainly agree with my noble friend that the rollout of nuclear
is particularly important. It offers large-scale carbon-free
electricity, which is why we recently announced our investment in
Sizewell C.
(CB)
My Lords, what assessment have the Government made of their
ability to meet the 2030 offshore wind targets of 50 gigawatts?
There are a number of challenges here: the change in
macroeconomic conditions; higher interest rates; and competition
in global supply chains.
(Con)
The noble Lord makes a very good point. We have been particularly
successful in rolling out offshore wind in this country. I have
made the point before that we have by far the largest rollout in
Europe. In fact, so successful have we been that the rest of
Europe is now trying to copy us, which of course will challenge
supply chains. But we are working very closely with all the
suppliers, many of which are expanding their production in the UK
to make sure that we can successfully meet our ambitious target.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Government announced earlier this year that their
main form of renewable investment—contracts for difference—would
move to more frequent allocation rounds, beginning next year.
This is welcome, as we have said; but what consideration have the
Government given to complementing this with the voluntary
contracts for difference process for existing generators, which
would grant generators longer-term revenue certainty and
safeguard consumers from further price rises?
(Con)
The noble Baroness is right that the contracts for difference
scheme has been extremely successful. Many of the generators are
now paying back into the system because the strike price is below
the market price. We will roll out as many additional CfD schemes
as we can in future years.
(GP)
My Lords, there was talk of the Government planning to open a
heat pump factory, which sounded like an extremely good idea
because at the moment we import them all. I am curious if that is
going to happen. Would that not have been a better plan than
opening a coal mine that produces coking coal that no one in the
UK is going to use and which we will probably have trouble
selling anyway?
(Con)
The noble Baroness knows how much I hate to disagree with her but
as usual, of course, she is wrong. I am not going to get into the
business of the Cumbria mine but of course there is a market for
the coking coal; it is not for energy production. She is also
wrong about heat pump manufacture. There are a number of heat
pump manufacturers in the UK. There is a big ground-source
manufacturer in Cornwall and air-source heat pump manufacturers
in Scotland, but we need more of them. That is why we have an
investment competition running whereby the Government will give
grant aid to help more heat pump manufacturers to be installed
into the UK.
(Con)
My Lords, I am at it again, as I was yesterday, on tidal power.
Does my noble friend agree that tidal power is totally
predictable and entirely independent of the vagaries of the
weather? Will he do his best to maximise both the development and
the implementation of tidal power?
(Con)
My noble friend is indeed passionate on this subject and raises
it many times. It is an important contributor, as I said, in the
latest CfD round that the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, referred
to. For the first time ever, we allowed some CfD investments in
tidal power.
(CB)
My Lords, nuclear fusion has long been seen as the holy grail of
clean energy technology. Given the breakthrough made in the
United States this week, I ask what role the United Kingdom and
its scientists have played in that. What hope does the Minister
have for nuclear fusion in future?
(Con)
The noble Lord makes a very good point. The breakthrough
announced by the Lawrence Livermore laboratory was indeed
ground-breaking. It is supported by many scientists here in the
UK. We have our own advanced investments and systems in
Oxfordshire. I am told by the BEIS scientific adviser that the UK
is very much in the premier league when it comes to fusion
research. Clearly it is at an early stage at the moment and it
will take a number of years to commercialise the technology and
roll it out. It is not going to be an immediate solution but it
certainly has tremendous potential for the future.
(Lab Co-op)
My Lords, on Sunday when I was passing Torness on an LNER
train—it was freezing cold and there was no wind to turn the
turbines—I thought how lucky we are to have nuclear energy in
Scotland at the moment. However, if things go the way that the
SNP wants, we will not have any in the future. Where will the UK
Government have the courage to say, “As far as we are concerned,
energy is a reserved area and therefore we are going to insist
that we have nuclear power in Scotland as well as in England”?
(Con)
The noble Lord makes a good point about the importance of nuclear
energy in the UK transmission mix. The irony of the SNP’s plans
is that, given that it is almost certainly not possible to run an
entire distribution system purely from wind power, as the SNP is
planning, it will have the benefit of being able to call on
English nuclear power to back up the Scottish people in future.
As always, England will want to help the Scottish people as much
as we possibly can and free them from the vagaries of silly SNP
green policies.
