Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how many businesses received support through the Energy Bills Discount Scheme; and what the total amount of support received was, by parliamentary constituency.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
As of 30 September 2023, the Energy Bills Discount Scheme (EBDS) had a cumulative expenditure of £114 million. For more detail on the expenditure incurred by the EBDS and other departmental energy schemes, I refer my hon. Friend to the Written Ministerial Statement made by my Rt. Hon. Friend the Secretary of State on 22 April, Official Report, HCWS421.
The Secretary of State will provide an update to Parliament on the EBDS in due course.
Information on the number of businesses receiving this support and levels of support broken down by parliamentary constituency is not held centrally, and can only be provided at disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, whether she made an assessment of trends in the level of exports from the offshore wind sector since 2015 and; whether she has made an estimate of their total value.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Office for National Statistics publishes estimates of offshore wind exports in Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy estimates (LCREE). The table below shows data from 2015 to 2022. It indicates an estimated ten-fold increase over the period, averaging around £2.4 billion for 2021-2022.
Offshore wind exports (£ thousand) | ||||||||
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 |
UK | 221,500 | 237,500 | 470,500 | 492,000 | 1,153,000 | 790,500 | 2,452,500 | 2,393,000 |
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, with reference to Table 16 of the Impact Assessment for the Carbon Budget Order 2021, published on 16 April 2021, if she will publish an annual undiscounted table of the costs and benefits of each option.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Impact Assessment compared the costs and benefits of meeting net zero in 2050 for different options for the level of the Sixth Carbon Budget, including the level recommended by the Climate Change Committee which has since been voted into law. Costs and benefits were aggregated over 2020-2050 to reflect uncertainty around the precise annual profile. Given this uncertainty, the table below sets out the undiscounted costs and benefits over 5 yearly increments.
Table 1. Costs and benefits breakdown by sixth carbon budget options, Core pathway only
| Costs and benefits relative to Option 1 (Do Nothing baseline of 2100MtCO2e) | 2021-2025 | 2026-2030 | 2031-2035 | 2036-2040 | 2041-2045 | 2046-2050 |
Costs (incl. capital & finance) | Option 2, Looser, 1105Mt | 34 | 88 | 160 | 217 | 277 | 381 |
Option 3, CCC level, 965Mt | 37 | 91 | 186 | 256 | 309 | 395 | |
Option 4, Tighter, 865Mt | 38 | 94 | 206 | 301 | 328 | 389 | |
Benefits (incl. fuel & emissions savings) | Option 2, Looser, 1105Mt | 2 | 68 | 182 | 357 | 526 | 739 |
Option 3, CCC level, 965Mt | 4 | 71 | 168 | 401 | 554 | 757 | |
Option 4, Tighter, 865Mt | 12 | 98 | 174 | 387 | 540 | 762 |
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an estimate of the number and proportion of homes that have an electricity smart meter.
Answered by Amanda Solloway - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Quarterly statistics on the rollout of smart meters in Great Britain, covering both gas and electricity smart meters installed, are available online: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/smart-meters-statistics.
This includes information about the number and proportion of electricity smart meters.
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what purchases her Department made of international carbon credits in the most recent five years for which figures are available; and what the average cost per tonne of CO2 was.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
DESNZ compensates for emissions associated with the flights taken by Ministers and their support staff by purchasing high quality international carbon credits, annually and in arrears.
The Department is close to finalising its first purchase of international carbon credits in respect of emissions from the Department’s creation to the end of last year.
In 2022, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) purchased 151 carbon credits to compensate for the emissions associated with flights taken in 2021 by BEIS Ministers and their support staff. This was at a cost of £1,394.89, making the cost per tonne £9.24.
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, how much (a) private sector investment and (b) public sector funding there has been for (i) onshore wind, (ii) offshore wind and (iii) solar power in each financial year since 2009-10.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Based on data from BloombergNEF, total investment into UK offshore wind, onshore wind and solar PV was £143bn over 2009-2023 (converted to real 2023 prices, nearest £bn). For these technologies, a record £19bn was in 2023, helping the renewable share of total UK electricity generation increase from 7% in 2010 to nearly 50% in 2023.
In the UK, renewables receive levy-funded support through legacy schemes (Renewables Obligation [RO] and Feed-in Tariffs [FiTs]), and our Contracts for Difference (CfD) mechanism. The OBR regularly publish estimates of levy spend for the prior financial year across the RO and CfD schemes, and Ofgem publishes estimates for FiTs, aggregated for all renewables. For the CfD scheme only, the LCCC publish data at a technology and plant level.
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what information her Department holds on the year in which the highest level of private sector investment into renewable sources of power generation was recorded.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Based on data from BloombergNEF, total investment into UK offshore wind, onshore wind and solar PV was £143bn over 2009-2023 (converted to real 2023 prices, nearest £bn). For these technologies, a record £19bn was in 2023, helping the renewable share of total UK electricity generation increase from 7% in 2010 to nearly 50% in 2023.
In the UK, renewables receive levy-funded support through legacy schemes (Renewables Obligation [RO] and Feed-in Tariffs [FiTs]), and our Contracts for Difference (CfD) mechanism. The OBR regularly publish estimates of levy spend for the prior financial year across the RO and CfD schemes, and Ofgem publishes estimates for FiTs, aggregated for all renewables. For the CfD scheme only, the LCCC publish data at a technology and plant level.
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, if she will make an estimate of the proportion of total energy demand will be met by (a) oil, (b) gas and (c) nuclear in (i) 2025, (ii) 2030, (iii) 2035, (iv) 2040, (v) 2045 and (vi) 2050.
Answered by Andrew Bowie - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The table below sets out shares for oil, gas and nuclear consistent with a pathway to meeting the UK’s 6th Carbon Budget.
| 2022 | 2025 | 2030 | 2035 |
Gas (% of total energy) | 38% | 37% | 33% | 28% |
Oil (% of total energy) | 38% | 36% | 34% | 23% |
Electricity from nuclear (% of total energy) | 2% | 2% | 2% | 4% |
Electricity from nuclear (% of electricity) | 15% | 15% | 10% | 13% |
Beyond 2035, oil and gas use will need to continue to decline but will remain an important part of the energy mix and even when reaching net zero in 2050 oil and gas (combined) could still provide around a quarter of the UK's energy needs. The Government has set out an ambition for nuclear energy to provide up to around a quarter of the UK’s electricity needs by 2050 which would represent around 12% of expected total energy demand.
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what volume of gas was imported into the UK as liquefied natural gas in each of the last 20 years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
UK gas demand and imports of gas into the UK as liquified natural gas (LNG) in each of the last 20 years are published in Energy Trends Table 4.1.
LNG imports as a proportion of gas demand for each of the last 20 years can be derived from these data. Caution should be taken when inferring that imported LNG met demand due to the interconnected nature of gas pipeline infrastructure (e.g. LNG would be mixed with other gas in the network some of which is then exported).
Asked by: Selaine Saxby (Conservative - North Devon)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, what proportion of gas demand was met by imports of liquefied natural gas in each of the last 20 years.
Answered by Justin Tomlinson - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
UK gas demand and imports of gas into the UK as liquified natural gas (LNG) in each of the last 20 years are published in Energy Trends Table 4.1.
LNG imports as a proportion of gas demand for each of the last 20 years can be derived from these data. Caution should be taken when inferring that imported LNG met demand due to the interconnected nature of gas pipeline infrastructure (e.g. LNG would be mixed with other gas in the network some of which is then exported).