Energy Grid Resilience

Markus Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important question. I was here after Storm Éowyn, when we discussed that a number of people who no longer had a copper wire line were not able to contact emergency services. It was a really important point.

There is resilience built into the mobile phone network to ensure that masts should be able to operate in circumstances when even the power to them is cut off. It is a question for Ofcom to look at and I have spoken to my colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to make sure that that is happening. There is more that we can do. We are engaging with the Energy Networks Association, which works with distribution network operators, to make sure that all the resilience plans join up and that the practical impact that the hon. Lady rightly raises is taken into account. I will write to her with updates.

[Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) has already highlighted, synthetic inertia technologies are used to simulate the benefits that traditional turbine technologies provided to an electricity grid now increasingly supplied by renewables. Is the Minister satisfied that we have sufficiently invested in those technologies to provide resilience across the grid? Is there an argument that surge protection devices, which wiring regulations mandate for nearly all new domestic and commercial installations, should be installed in all homes and businesses?

[Michael Shanks]

I will take that interesting point on surge protection away and speak to my colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

On the wider point around inertia, as the system changes, there is a constant balancing job for the National Energy System Operator to make sure that we design a system that is resilient. We are deploying technologies to ensure that the system is resilient and there is sufficient inertia by procuring the alternative technologies that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) referenced, but we will keep it under constant review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Markus Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question, though it was not quite about the National Wealth Fund. He is right to highlight electricity prices. This is a challenge for industry and one we inherited from the previous Government. The best way to bring those bills down is to secure clean power by 2030, but he is right to highlight the challenges, and that is what we are trying to fix.

[Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)]

T1.   If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero (Ed Miliband)]

Last week, 60 Governments and more than 50 global businesses gathered in London for the first global summit on the future of energy security with the International Energy Agency. I heard from country after country the hard-headed case for clean energy’s role in delivering energy security to free us from the global fossil fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators. I also heard from many clean energy businesses that Britain was the place where they wanted to invest because of the clarity and speed of this Government’s mission.

[Markus Campbell-Savours]

Homes in rural areas experience some of the highest rates of fuel poverty in the UK. Rural properties are less energy efficient than the national average and many are simply harder to insulate. Will the Minister confirm that my constituents in Penrith and Solway will see the additional challenge of rurality reflected in the Government’s ambitious warm homes plan?

[Ed Miliband]

One hundred per cent—my hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. The Minister for Energy Consumers and I often discuss how we have to ensure that our warm homes plan takes account of the particular needs and challenges facing rural areas.