Electricity Supply: International Interconnectors

Baroness Featherstone Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

My Lords, I am not sure; I will have to write to the right reverend Prelate on that question. But more generally, the electricity provided through the interconnectors is a flexible supply. It can go either way, into or back from the continent, depending upon differential prices in the two markets. It is not part of our baseload capacity.

[Baroness Featherstone (LD)]

My Lords, 11.6 gigawatts of capacity from interconnectors has been paused because of Brexit. A key factor in ending that pause—as the Minister said, it will give us our security—will be whether the UK remains in the European internal energy market. What priority does this have with Her Majesty’s Government?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I do not think there will necessarily be any impact from Brexit on the interconnector market. We are committed to building another 7.7 gigawatts of capacity and, in the Budget of 2016, we increased that to an additional 9 gigawatts of capacity by 2021. We are going to increase the amount of electricity flowing both ways through the interconnector system.