Long Duration Electricity Storage Systems

Graham Leadbitter Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacDonald]

The hon. Gentleman has hit the nail on the head. There is not enough in it for the communities to benefit from. Pump storage seems to be as good a way of providing electricity that we could find.

In the highlands, we have the wind, water and geography that make the area so important for our national energy system. We have been producing hydroelectricity for the rest of the country for generations and we now have the opportunity to store much more of it. The highlands already generate 12 times the amount of electricity they need, but we have one of the highest levels of fuel poverty in Britain. Go figure, as my children would say.

When Alex Salmond was First Minister of Scotland, he declared that Scotland could become the “Saudi Arabia of renewables”. Yes, the hills of Scotland are covered in wind turbines, but they are manufactured abroad and are often owned by overseas utilities. From a multi-billion pound industry, Scotland’s communities got only £30 million of community benefit last year and the highlands got only £7 million. That is just £30 per head of population in the highlands.

The highlands already generate almost 8 GW of renewable electricity per year; roughly a third from hydroelectricity and two thirds from onshore wind. Even before factoring in pump storage, we play an important role in the electrification of the UK. I have said in this House before that I want the highlands to properly benefit from the enormous value of their natural resources. I was hopeful about onshore wind investment and the jobs and opportunities it could bring, but in practice that has been minimal. The proposed pump storage projects are now the only remaining chance I can see to bring proper money into my left-behind part of Britain.

Why does electricity storage really matter? Long duration storage has an important role in our energy future and the highlands have a particular ability to help deliver it. We need to be able to store electricity when there is plenty of it and to use it when we need it. Batteries play an important role in managing shorter periods, but we need technology that is capable of supplying electricity for much longer stretches.

Pump storage is a proven technology, capable of providing large amounts of electricity for long periods. These are long-life infrastructure assets, which are expected to operate for more than a century. They use electricity to pump water from a lower reservoir to a higher reservoir; when electricity is required, water is released through the turbines. As people can imagine, with our geography the highlands is very well placed for these assets. Our lochs, hills and mountains allow us to create the height differences that pump storage requires. The technical term is hydraulic head. In simple terms, the greater the height difference between the reservoirs, the more energy that can be produced with the same amount of water.

This summer, Ofgem announced that it has provisionally approved three pump storage sites in the highlands: Coire Glas, near Invergarry; Loch Kemp, near Loch Ness; and Lochan na h-Earba, which is quite near Newtonmore. These three sites will produce a collective 4 GW of electricity, which is three times as much electricity as Greater Manchester uses. The development costs will be over £5 billion, which will make the entire scheme by far the biggest ever infrastructure investment ever seen in the highlands. There are also three more pump storage sites that are keen to get Ofgem’s go-ahead: Loch Fearna, near Invergarry; Loch Ericht; and Loch na Cathrach, on Loch Ness.

[Graham Leadbitter (Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The hon. Member mentioned Lochan na h-Earba, which is in my constituency. The number of projects included in the Ofgem list at the moment, which he mentioned, and the number of projects that we could build and get benefit from differ quite significantly. And in addition to the possible projects in the highlands, there are some in the lowlands as well, in Dumfriesshire and other areas, which could benefit from Government investment, time and effort to get them onstream. Does he agree that we absolutely need to maximise the use of the extremely reliable and extremely well-tested technology of hydro?

[Mr MacDonald]

I think that hydro is a far better source of electricity than wind. It has much less visual impact and it is available when we really need it; we have quite a lot of wind, but it is obviously dependent on the wind blowing.

The future energy scenarios report of the National Energy System Operator, or NESO, for 2025 suggested that Britain could need between 13.2 GW and 16.6 GW of long duration storage by 2050. The six sites in the highlands that I have mentioned will go a long way towards providing that storage.

The second point I wish to make is about the implication for the electricity market and the people paying their bills. One aspect of this is the way that the wholesale electricity market works. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but gas still sets the price for electricity when gas-fired generation is needed, even at a time when a great deal of electricity is coming from renewable sources.

Mains gas is 8p a kilowatt at the moment, whereas electricity is 26p a kilowatt, or more than three times as much. Broadly speaking, people in rural areas across the whole of the UK do not have mains gas. In my patch, only those people in Inverness city and Dingwall receive mains gas.

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[Mr MacDonald]

I have always believed that tide is probably the single best energy source, because it is entirely predictable and operates well in the estuaries where our cities are, so we do not need to transform it. I am not up to date, but it is something that we should really concentrate on.

[Graham Leadbitter]

There are also huge opportunities for geothermal energy, particularly in Aberdeenshire, but also in other parts of Scotland. The Government could focus more attention on geothermal and tidal stream. Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that sentiment?

[Mr MacDonald]

Hopefully, we will have all these different renewable energy sources coming through, but geothermal is a big one.

We have an enormous opportunity in rural Scotland to facilitate the electrification of Britain, and long-duration storage can help us make better use of the renewable electricity we generate. It can improve the security of supply and support a more efficient electricity system. Rural Scotland plays a role in enabling Britain to achieve its net zero ambitions. However, the impact on our communities is currently almost entirely negative. It is like telling the inhabitants of Norway or Aberdeen in the 1970s that there will be an oil and gas boom, but the locals should not benefit from it. As things stand, these multibillion-pound pump storage sites will produce few local jobs, no legacy housing and minimal community benefit for the people of the highlands. That is completely unacceptable.

Pump storage sites are an essential part of our national energy portfolio, and they are great for Britain. Let us make them great for the highlands, too.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Shanks]

Let me come to that point, because we have discussed that before. My starting point is that communities who host infrastructure should feel the benefits of it, and they should be meaningful benefits. We consulted on how we will deliver both community benefits and shared-ownership opportunities for communities. We have put £1 billion pounds into Great British Energy to make sure that there is the financial capacity for communities to take up that shared-ownership offer. We will continue to push that.

I have spoken before about the need for us to balance that though; ultimately, all the costs of building these projects is borne by consumers across the country. The hon. Gentleman and I share the objective of bringing down bills as much as possible. There is a balance to be struck and I do not pretend that is easy because his community—he is right to champion them—will rightly want more and more community benefits. My job is to balance that against the cost of these projects. I need first to ensure that they are economical and will be built, because that is important for the national interest, and secondly that they are built as affordably as possible so that we can bring down bills for everyone. There is a balance to be struck, as I have said to the hon. Gentleman before.

I know that the hon. Gentleman will always want us to go further, but I would just say that the cap and floor scheme is designed to provide not huge public subsidy to make these projects happen, but just the right amount to make them viable. That is the key thing; the cap and floor scheme is designed to be a viability mechanism, so there is a risk that we end up using consumer bills to subsidise projects if we go too far. That does not mean that I do not share his ambition, and I have been very clear with developers that we should see genuine community benefits coming forward and that those should be meaningful for communities.

[Graham Leadbitter]

Very briefly, I am raising these issues with colleagues in the Scottish Government as well, but while DESNZ and Ofgem have a role in this, I think it is helpful for every organisation to be pushing the developers and saying, “What are you doing about the roads infrastructure? What are you doing about how you get people to and from the sites?” Projects represent big influxes of people into areas, while the local infrastructure can be just lane-and-a-half roads, with passing places and all that. Will the Minister commit to putting some pressure on those companies to invest in that?

[Michael Shanks]

I thought the hon. Member was going to conclude by asking whether I would commit to putting some pressure on the Scottish Government, which would be unlike him. But I agree with him, actually. I have had a number of really productive conversations with Stephen Gethins, Scotland’s Energy Minister, on exactly that topic of how we can make these projects work for local communities. If we can bring that local investment into roads and other infrastructure, it leaves that legacy that I think we all want to see in communities. It is also of benefit to the projects, which will need some investment in road infrastructure anyway.

In summing up, I want to pick out two issues. First, I really welcome the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire’s recognition of the importance of long duration energy storage for our system. The truth of the past few years has been a recognition that, for decades, we had a consensus on building renewables across Scotland and the rest of Great Britain, but we did not make the investment that we should have in building the grid to connect them. We are now paying the price for that.

Equally, storage is absolutely central to how renewables can work in the system, giving us the flexibility to deploy that energy when we need it most and making sure that we are genuinely bringing cleaner, cheaper power to homes and businesses when we need it, which is how we bring down bills. It also has to be the foundation of delivering economic growth. The hon. Gentleman rightly recognised the Prime Minister’s commitment to growth in every postcode. Energy policy does not exist in a vacuum; it is part of our industrial strategy.

We are building these extraordinarily important projects that will last for more than a century. There has to be some legacy for communities from those projects, and we have to bring people with us on this journey. I frequently say in this place in particular, but in the main Chamber as well, that we do need to build infrastructure as a country—that is important—but we should try to bring communities with us wherever we possibly can. Community benefits and real investment are a critical part of that.

The Scottish Government are clearly a key partner in this, given that planning decisions in Scotland are not for me but for the Scottish Government. I know that they share my ambition about the importance of both deploying long duration energy storage and community benefits. They have guidance on this matter, and we are working together on it.

Whether it is through community benefit funds, the bill discounts that we have announced in terms of electricity infrastructure, or our ongoing work to make sure that there is an industrial benefit from these projects, I hope that the hon. Gentleman recognises that, while we might not get everything quite to the extent that he would like, these projects are an opportunity for communities to benefit from construction, from community benefits and from—I hope—a genuine lasting legacy.

Importantly for us as a country, this is how we deliver the secure, home-grown clean power that we need in the system, bring down bills for people and continue the transition to net zero, which is so important. I commend the hon. Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire again, and I look forward to what I am certain will be further conversations on this in due course.

Question put and agreed to.