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

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps he is taking to reduce dependence on non-renewable sources of energy.

The Department has a programme of action to reduce dependence on non-renewable sources of energy, including:

o taking action on energy efficiency to reduce demand for heat through the Private Rented Sector Regulations and through the Energy Company Obligation, which is worth £640m annually and will deliver around 300,000 measures per year until September 2018;

o encouraging households and businesses to install renewable and low carbon heat systems through the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme, with a £780m budget for 2017-2018;

o promoting heat networks in areas of denser heat demand, through the department’s new £320m capital support through Heat Networks Investment Project;

o working with major industrial sectors to set out short term collaborative actions on decarbonisation;

Electricity generated from renewables has increased from 7% to nearly 25% since 2010. We are on track to meet our ambition of delivering 30% of the UK’s electricity from renewables in 2020-21.

Support for large scale renewable deployment is delivered through competitive allocation of Contracts for Difference. The second Contracts for Difference allocation round is underway, with a budget of £290m of annual support for 15 years for technologies including offshore wind. The Government has also provided support for small scale renewable generation through Feed in Tariff.

Additionally, last November last year we launched a consultation on world leading plans to end electricity generation from unabated coal by 2025. The consultation ended on 8 February and we are currently considering the contributions received. A response to the consultation will be published in due course.