Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps the Government is taking to prioritise the use of clean, renewable energy over traditional energy sources; and what steps are being taken to avoid wind farms being turned off and constraint payments made.

The Clean Growth strategy (CGS) announced on the 12^th October, set out the government’s ambitious strategy to cut emissions while keeping costs down for consumers, creating good jobs and growing the economy. This includes a strategy of decarbonisation to deliver our goals of meeting our carbon budgets in a secure clean and affordable way. In 2016, renewables share of total generation was nearly 25% of UK electricity generation, and we are on track to meet our ambition of delivering 30% of the UK’s electricity from renewables in 2020-21.

The latest Contracts for Difference round announced on 11 September secured a further 3.3GW of renewable electricity, enough to power 3.6 million homes. This will see a saving of 5.4 million tonnes of carbon a year, the equivalent of the average annual carbon emissions from 2.8 million cars. The Clean Growth Strategy (CGS) also announced:

• improving the route to market for renewable technologies such as offshore wind by making up to £557 million for further Pot 2 Contract for Difference auctions, with the next one planned for spring 2019;
  
• working with industry as they develop an ambitious Sector Deal for offshore wind, which could result in 10 gigawatts of new capacity, with the opportunity for additional deployment if this is cost effective, built in the 2020s;
  
• In addition, spending on the Renewable Heat Incentive schemes will rise from £430 million in 2015-16 to £1.15 billion in 2020-21, and following the recent government consultation the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation level will be increasing to 9.75% in 2020, rising to 12.4% in 2032.

Whilst we do not consider constraint payments to be inherently wrong, the UK Government has taken action to minimise the costs involved. In October 2012, we worked closely with Ofgem to introduce the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition, which ensures that generators are not able to profit unfairly at the expense of consumers. This has helped to halve the average unit constraint price for wind farms. In addition, the delivery of planned transmission reinforcements should help to reduce constraints.