Draft Infrastructure Planning (Electricity Storage Facilities) Order 2020

(Limited Text - Ministerial Extracts only)

Thursday 17th September 2020 General Committees

[The Chair]

Before I call the Minister, I remind hon. Members about the social distancing rules; the seats are marked out clearly. Also, because of the covid regulations, it would be particularly helpful to our colleagues in Hansard if people could email any speaking notes that they have to [e-mail]. I call the Minister to move the motion.

[The Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth (Kwasi Kwarteng)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft Infrastructure Planning (Electricity Storage Facilities) Order 2020.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Stringer. I am pleased that we have your direction for this hopefully short debate.

The draft order was laid before the House on 14 July. In the current situation, it is a very simple statutory instrument. Currently, for electricity storage facilities over 50 MW in England and over 350 MW in Wales, planning consent must be sought from the Secretary of State under the nationally significant infrastructure projects regime. For facilities below those thresholds, consent is derived from the relevant local planning authority. The SI simply removes the threshold and devolves all consents to the relevant local planning authority. We are doing this because there is strong evidence that the 50 MW threshold in England is distorting the sizing of projects and the nature of investment decisions. Here in England, there is clearly a clustering of storage projects sized just below the 50 MW threshold simply to avoid referral to the NSIP regime.

In 2019, we consulted on removing electricity storage, with the exemption of pumped hydro, from the NSIP regime in England and Wales. We received some 28 responses from the industry, and all bar two, I think, were broadly supportive of the change. For battery and more innovative forms of storage, the planning impacts are low compared with pumped hydro and other forms of generation. The extra time and cost of the NSIP regime is not thought to be proportionate and is also limiting the size of new projects to just below the threshold. The draft order removes these technologies, as I said, from the NSIP regime, so that consent will generally be sought from the local authority. To ensure consistent treatment, this will also apply to Wales, where the NSIP threshold, at 350 MW, is higher than that in England.

We feel that this measure will unlock investment in larger storage projects, support low-carbon jobs and help to decarbonise our energy system. Our assessment is that it could save the industry up to £7 million a year. As I said, the order does not remove pumped hydro storage from the NSIP regime, as hydro storage technology facilities have significant planning impacts, which we feel should be kept within the NSIP regime. Should Parliament approve the draft order, a parallel order will be required to amend the Electricity Act 1989 to ensure that consents for electricity storage fall within the local planning regime.

[Sir Robert Syms (Poole) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister on a clear, concise explanation of what the Government are doing. It is rare in a Committee of this type that one actually understands what the Government are trying to do without doing handstands trying to read all the explanatory notes, so well done.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I thank my hon. Friend very much. I am pleased to say that I always try to boil down exactly what legislation does and to explain as simply as I can the Government’s aims. Having sat in these Committees, he and I know that many times people simply read out exactly what has been as presented to them, and in many instances—though not, I hasten to add, in this Parliament—Ministers have not really understood what they were saying. That was the impression I had as a Back Bencher, so I have tried to make things simple.

We will ensure that the statutory instrument applies for onshore and offshore facilities. We are working closely with the Welsh Government, who will pass their own legislation on storage located off the Welsh coast. The order will ensure that storage is treated appropriately in the planning system. That will unlock investment, which is critical to the net zero strategy that we have set ourselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

As is often the case, the hon. Gentleman has widened the scope of the discussion, and many of the issues that he has raised are more appropriately debated on the Floor of the House in subsequent debates and in consideration of primary legislation.

I have to stress that this SI has very simple and very clear purpose, which the hon. Gentleman enthusiastically supports. I say to all hon. Members, look at the SI and welcome the fact that it removes electricity storage from the NSIP regime, makes planning far more local, and, I believe, will ease the deployability of capital in this regard. I do not share the hon. Gentleman’s view that the sector is suffering; it has been very successful, but I appreciate that there is a degree of urgency. I am happy to commend this order, and I thank all members of the Committee for attending this debate.

Question put and agreed to.