Alan Whitehead
Main Page: Alan Whitehead (Labour - Southampton, Test)National Policy Statements
Alan Whitehead Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Charles Hendry
I would hope that the nature of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, and its track record for independence and fact-based assessment, would be sufficient to assure everyone that a thorough approach will be taken. There is no doubt in any of our minds that if anybody tried to steer its conclusions one way or the other it would publicly require them to go away. I am absolutely satisfied that the process will be independent and robust, but in due course the institute will publish the full report so that it can be peer-reviewed.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Before the hon. Gentleman leaves EN-5, will he reflect on the question that he raised previously about investment in new infrastructure through the electricity markets as they stood, and the extent to which that investment stayed in existing equipment to shore up the electricity market? In the new circumstances, where investment in infrastructure will increasingly be required before the replacement of plant, will EN-5 reflect that change fully? If not, could the energy market reforms that he will undertake shortly inform a revision of EN-5 to take those new circumstances into account?
Charles Hendry
We have to see the national policy statements as part of the process. They are an integral part of an improved planning process, but they are not the full package. Electricity market reform will also be a key element in incentivising people to invest. Let me give an example of how things are changing. I was recently with Ofgem launching the second round of offshore grid transmission infrastructure bids. More than 100 different organisations, most of which were new players in this area, were keen to take part in that process, which was started by the previous Administration. A number of new organisations—new financial institutions—want to invest in our energy infrastructure, which is extremely encouraging, but to see the full package of these measures it will be necessary to ensure that they see the planning changes and the funding mechanisms that will drive it forward.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
We have a scandalously short time in which to address these issues this evening. I have calculated that if we were to stack vertically the documents we are talking about this evening—important documents fundamental to the future of our energy planning—the pile would be 7 inches high. We have therefore been allocated 21 minutes per inch of document. As I have seven minutes, I will address just one third of the documents by focusing on EN-1 and EN-5. However, I hope the powers that be will press through the usual channels for a lot more time in the Chamber to discuss these documents as they go through the consultative phase, because it is just not right that we have such a short time to get to grips with them.
EN-1 is an overarching policy document setting out our energy planning framework for the future. It deals with our climate change commitments, and our commitments to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. That, in turn, means the documents have to address the decarbonisation of the UK’s energy supply. The Committee on Climate Change wrote to the Secretary of State for Energy on 17 June, stating baldly:
“The path to meeting the UK’s 2050 target to reduce emissions by 80% requires that the power sector is largely decarbonised in the period to 2030 (e.g. average emissions should be about 100 g/kWh in 2030 compared to around 500 g/kWh currently).”
I assume that the Government largely agree with the Committee on Climate Change that to meet the requirements of our climate change budgets this, or something like it, should be the scenario and that that will be reflected in the planning documents that are published. After all, if we are to achieve these goals we cannot just hope they will happen; we need to plan for them, and to achieve them through a combination of planning signals, market incentives and supply and trading arrangements.
EN-1 states that under some of our pathways some revisions have taken the scenario beyond 2025 towards the 2050 targets. It states:
“Under some of our 2050 pathways, energy would need to be virtually emission-free”.
Tessa Munt
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Infrastructure Planning Commission successor body appears to be carbon-blind in its decision making under the arrangements? The IPC successor body should give significant weight to any project’s carbon emissions and ensure that cumulative emissions from the various projects do not jeopardise the UK’s carbon targets and their budgets. The national policy statement should provide an additional safeguard to that process.
Dr Whitehead
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. In response to the Energy and Climate Change Committee report examining the previous national policy statements the Government have accepted they need to undertake some sort of spatial planning arrangement which will look at the cumulative impacts between various arrangements as they progress. She is also absolutely right that in this NPS that question of decarbonisation of supply needs to be part of the process, not anterior to it. The current level of emissions of our energy supply means that if we are to get to that position, gas at about 450 grams per kWh unabated probably will have no part to play in the energy economy by 2030—when abated, it comes in at about 100 grams per kWh.
What are we planning? What are we looking for in these overarching documents? According to EN-1, we are planning to require a capacity of about 113 GW of installed power sources by 2025, which is a substantial increase on 2010 levels because of the penetration of wind, in particular. According to the scenario of that capacity projection, wind needs greater capacity to balance its variability. So the 113 GW, which is an increase on the about 80 GW of installed capacity that we have at the moment, will need to be installed by that point. However, 22 GW are expected to go offline, including most nuclear plants and a number of power plants, under the large plant directive and the industrial emissions directive. So 59 GW of new power will need to be built between now and 2025, one way or another.
If we reach the renewables targets for wind, and we probably will, given the amount of wind power already in planning, we will have about 33 GW of wind power on the grid. That means that we will need 26 GW of new build non-renewables or non-wind. Of whatever type, they will, for the reasons I have outlined, need to be low-carbon or lowish-carbon. Some 8 GW are under construction and almost all that construction relates to gas. That leaves a balance of 18 GW. Some 9 GW is not under construction but has planning permission. The Government dismiss that as uncertain, but 5 GW of that relates to gas; plans for a further 7 GW are under consideration, most of which also relates to gas. So it appears that most of the current gap is set to be made up by gas. As the Select Committee has been told by the Committee on Climate Change, more gas is in the pipeline in terms of planning, permissions or build than we need for that future decarbonisation strategy to work.
The NPS says that
“it would be for industry to determine the exact mix of the remaining 26 GW of required new electricity capacity, acting within the strategic framework set by the Government”.
If industry decides as it appears to be deciding, it will choose gas. If it is to be gas and that gas is unabated or only partially abated, the decarbonisation of our electricity supply will not happen.
Dr Whitehead
I am sorry but I have to make progress because I will not get injury time for the second intervention I take.
David Mowat
Thank you for your help on that matter, Mr Deputy Speaker. I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point about decarbonisation, but it prompts the question: how much cost penalty would he advocate as reasonable in order for us to go down the route of a totally carbon-free mix in the way he is suggesting? Each household in the country already pays about £50 for the renewables obligation. The implication of his remarks is that the sum should be very much higher. I wonder whether he has thought about that.
Dr Whitehead
Indeed I have. I think we will find out considerably more about that in the material that will come out on energy market reform, particularly the details on what a carbon floor price will look like and what capacity payments will look like to keep the energy balance more decarbonised in future. Yes, that will add costs to the system and there need to be circumstances in which those can be abated for the public, but that is a particular issue for the energy market reform material to address.
When the Minister was asked in the recent Energy and Climate Change Committee sitting about the gap that I have mentioned he said that it is possible that 16 GW of the 18 GW gap could be new nuclear. That represents 10 new nuclear power stations by 2025, and although that would solve the gap problem it has the unfortunate downside of being inherently implausible. The Minister may want to rectify what he said in the light of that implausibility at a future date.
The Committee on Climate Change’s estimate for the nuclear roll-out, produced in 2009, said that there would be a maximum of three nuclear power stations online by 2020, even based on optimistic build and planning time scenarios. Indeed, as we have seen, the timing of the justification process has already slipped.
That leaves a gap that is not filled by nuclear. It is clear at the moment that there is an apparent contradiction in our national planning statements. We want to decarbonise our supply, but for 2025 we are pushing towards having a majority of gas as opposed to a small amount of peripheral gas at peaking periods, which is what our future energy supply should be based on.
That is compounded by NPS EN-5, which attempts to collate permissions for plant and line. It will therefore replicate the question of providing grid capacity for plants as they stand and not provide new grid capacity for plants that are not yet completed and that will be needed for a decentralised and decarbonised future energy supply.
I do not have time to go into the matter of electricity storage, but I hope that the NPSs will pay some attention to that question. It is not true that electricity cannot be stored, as NPS EN-1 says. It can be stored and storage must be a future part of our increased capacity, as the Minister mentioned in the Select Committee yesterday. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that.