Wind Farm Subsidies (Abolition) Bill — House of Commons, 2015-03-06
Topic: Energy
Matthew John David Hancock (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) on securing the debate. I know that he has a long-standing interest in ensuring that the nation has affordable, secure, economic and sustainable energy supplies, and the Government fully support that aim. His Bill would eliminate subsidies for onshore wind that are provided by the Government via the renewables obligation, contracts for difference and feed-in tariff regimes, and paid for by bill payers Our policy is intended to achieve our goal of reducing subsidies while meeting our global carbon reduction obligations and securing supply at the lowest reasonable cost. The hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott) referred to the "trilemma" in energy policy. Energy policy needs to balance the long-term requirement to live within international obligations on climate change and mitigate the risks with guaranteeing security of supply, which involves the costs of ensuring that enough energy infrastructure is constructed, and with ensuring that those costs are as low as reasonably possible. That is the standard "trilemma", but rising to the challenge means not only balancing those three requirements, but ensuring that our policy can hit all three goals at once when that is possible Alongside new nuclear, gas and carbon capture and storage, renewables, including wind energy, are an important component of the balanced energy mix that the Government are creating. It is clear that we need to increase our use of renewable energy. Renewables provide clean energy and reduce our dependence on finite fossil fuels, but they also increase our energy security, because renewable energy is inherently domestic, and they reduce the need for us to import energy from abroad. At the same time, the construction and operation of renewables create jobs and investment in our economy. It is estimated that £29 billion has been invested since 2010 According to figures that I looked up when I was preparing for the debate, renewables provided nearly 18% of our electricity in the third quarter of 2014. That has enhanced our energy security and reduced our dependence on imported energy. As we know, the United Kingdom is blessed with a huge number of advantages when it comes to wind generation. We have relatively shallow seas, and ours is a very windy country. The resource is even more pronounced in offshore areas, and it makes sense for us to take advantage of it. We are the clear world leader in offshore wind, in terms of both installed capacity and investment attractiveness Let me now respond to, and challenge, some of the common concerns that have been expressed about wind energy, including those expressed by hon. Friend today. It is necessary to deal with those important issues, because we must get our wind energy policy right so that wind can play an appropriate role in our energy mix The first issue is whether wind energy actually provides electricity at all. I can confirm that it provided 7% of our electricity at the end of the third quarter of 2014. Of course it is intermittent—the wind does not always blow—but that does not mean that it is an inefficient source of energy. Wind turbines tend to generate electricity for 80% to 85% of the time. Of course they cannot generate during periods of windlessness; that is why they must be part of a balanced energy mix, so that we can draw on other technologies when the wind does not blow. As larger proportions of renewables come onstream, that intermittency will become more of an issue, and we shall have to prepare for it very carefully. It is therefore crucial for our energy policy to be set in a long-term framework We accept that back-up is sometimes required, including back-up from coal, gas and biomass. In the longer term, intermittent falls in generation can be dealt with by a range of technologies such as demand-side response, interconnection with other countries, and electricity storage. In the United Kingdom, electricity storage generally means pumped-storage hydroelectricity, but an increasing number of exciting technologies will enable us to store electricity and deal with the intermittency.