Renewable Energy

Viscount Ridley Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Ridley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what estimate they have made of the cost (£/tCO₂e) of greenhouse gas emissions abatement in the most recent year for which there is data from each of wind offshore, wind onshore and solar, taking into account the additional electricity system costs appropriate to each technology.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change and Wales Office (Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth) (Con)]

My Lords, based on support provided through the renewables obligation, the estimated abatement cost in 2014 was £65 per tonne of carbon dioxide for onshore wind, £121 for offshore wind and £110 for solar PV.

[Viscount Ridley (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that reply and declare my interests in energy as listed in the register. Does he agree that the Ed Miliband/Chris Huhne energy policy that he inherited has been extremely effective at taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich but much less effective at decarbonisation—and particularly at decarbonisation in an affordable way? The numbers he gave for the abatement costs per tonne of carbon dioxide from those three technologies are higher than the numbers given for the total cost of climate change—the so-called social cost of carbon—as estimated by all economists, including even the noble Lord, Lord Stern. Would my noble friend guarantee to investigate these numbers to see whether we are getting value for money as consumers through these subsidies?

[Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth]

My Lords, it is fair to say that there is a decline in the cost of renewable generation technologies. The steepest decline is in solar PV. On my noble friend’s point about the fact that the last leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, had a policy on energy that was not in the interests of the country, I am pleased to say that one of the first actions of the new Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change was to write to the energy companies to say that we look forward to seeing a reduction in bills consequent on the fact that the last leader of the Opposition is not now Prime Minister.