Energy Grid Resilience

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I very much take my noble friend’s point; I will certainly take it on board and discuss it with colleagues. In relation to energy security, I have already said that we must maintain a resilient and secure electricity system. It is a key priority for us. We work closely with the National Protective Security Authority. I pay tribute to my noble friend for the contribution that he has made to these discussions. We are providing extensive advice and support to industry on what measures it should take to protect itself, but I take the point about communication with the public and it is something that I will reflect upon.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

I want to reinforce the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. He is right, and the Minister is right, that in the past we did indeed have resilience. In this sort of case, resilience means bringing in a large amount of extra supply at very short notice, such as could be performed at Dinorwig, the pump storage station, which I was told could bring in several gigawatts at two minutes’ notice and, furthermore, that even if it was never used, the entire system would allow other plants to run at a higher margin, with a higher inertia factor, and, therefore, provide even more resilience and effectiveness for the whole system. In this age, as we move into reliance on renewables on a massive scale, are we providing extra support of that kind—rapid resource mobilisation—which will give us the modern and reliable system that we are going to need to compete in the modern world?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

Yes, my Lords, we are. It is a very relevant point. Clearly, we are looking for a balanced energy mix for the future. We see nuclear as being an essential baseload. We will have renewables, but we are looking at hydro storage, as the noble Lord reflected in his own question. The whole point is that we will have a balanced system, but one that is heavily decarbonised. That is exactly the aim of what we seek to do.