Offshore Wind

Baroness Sheehan Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend certainly highlights a concern, but lots of protections are built in and lots of environmental regulations need to be adhered to when these projects are consented to and all the matters are gone into fully, in both environmental and regulatory permitting. Every energy source has its drawbacks. Those who are against nuclear would point to its drawbacks; with coal-fired power stations, there are obviously drawbacks; gas-fired power stations have their drawbacks. There has been an increase in new solar farms being developed in the UK. I can assure noble Lords that, from my postbag, lots of people write in to complain about those as well. We have to get generation capacity and electricity supplies from somewhere. No system is absolutely perfect but offshore wind is certainly one of the best.

[Baroness Sheehan (LD)]

My Lords, it is unacceptable that last week’s offshore wind auction was a failure because of the Government’s insistence on an unrealistic strike price, yet we remain none the wiser about the cost of another source of electricity—nuclear energy. The cost of Sizewell C’s electricity remains shrouded in secrecy. The only thing we can be sure of is that it will be exceedingly expensive. The Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has called for greater transparency on Sizewell’s cost. Will the Minister take this opportunity to give an updated cost estimate for Sizewell C? We need to be sure that we are on a level playing field.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I will be happy to supply those figures to the noble Baroness in writing if I can. Again, it is worth saying that, in a diversified energy system, it is important to have different sources of supply. I am very enthusiastic about solar and offshore wind; they are intermittent but they are cheap when they are generating. We also need baseload supply, so there will a role for nuclear and for gas-fired power stations, ideally with CCUS fitted as well. It is important that we have diversity of supply, including such things as tidal on a relatively small scale. Geothermal is another technology that was successful in getting contracts under this allocation round. Again, these are nascent technologies that are starting to build up. We need diversity of supply for our future generating mix.