Energy: Yorkshire and the Humber

(asked on 25th March 2019) - View Source

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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to the article entitled From power stations to solar panels, the future is local, by the Minister of State for Energy and Clean Growth on 8 January 2019, what steps he is taking to assist communities in Yorkshire transition to smarter energy systems.


Answered by
 Portrait
Claire Perry
This question was answered on 2nd April 2019

The Government is facilitating the transition to a smarter energy system in Great Britain. Smart meters are a critical building block for an accessible smart energy system and there are now 12.8m smart and advanced meters operating across homes and businesses in Great Britain. The Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan outlined 29 actions that Government, Ofgem and industry will take to enable the transition to a smarter and more flexible system. These actions include removing barriers to smart technologies such as electricity storage, enabling smart homes and businesses so that consumers have greater control over their energy use, and improving the access of new technologies and business models to energy markets. Government has committed to invest up to £70m in funding for smart energy innovation. In October 2018, Government and Ofgem published an update to the Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan which set out that over half of these actions had been implemented.

LEP energy strategies, funded by BEIS, have started to develop an understanding of local opportunity for local and community ownership and involvement in future energy systems. BEIS have also funded a Local Energy hub for the North East, Yorkshire and Humber which will bring capacity to help develop some local projects at scale.

Over £5.9bn has been spent through the Feed-in tariff scheme to date, supporting the growth of small-scale low-carbon electricity generation. This has helped support over 830,000 installations, of which, according to Ofgem statistics, 9.85% (over 82,000 installations) are in Yorkshire and the Humber. The Government has recently concluded a consultation on a Smart Export Guarantee, to ensure that small-scale low-carbon generators do not export their electricity to the grid for free.

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