Gas Storage Levels

Debate between Baroness Hayman and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

That is right. NESO manages this with an operating margin, made up of the operating reserve—1,400 megawatts, which it always keeps in reserve. There is a contingency reserve of an additional 800 megawatts on top of that operating reserve. That contingency reserve was tight last week and so an electricity margin notice was issued, as my noble friend suggested. This is a perfectly normal market response to a tightening of the situation, which was resolved immediately.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of Peers for the Planet. The Minister’s Statement and his reply to the noble Lord just now are reassuring, as was all the independent analysis of what happened last week. We were not in a crisis. Nevertheless, it is important that, as we move towards more dependence on renewables, we look at the issues of long-duration energy storage and energy efficiency. We do not have a long time until 2030. Can the Minister tell us when we will be able to put some real targets on the amount of long-duration energy storage, which the Science and Technology Committee of this House says that we need urgently?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I was present during the debate on Thursday on the Select Committee’s excellent report on this very subject. I refer my friend the noble Baroness to the action plan that my department issued only a few weeks ago, estimating that between 40 gigawatts and 50 gigawatts of dispatchable and long-duration flexible capacity could be needed by 2030. We are going to take a number of interventions to ensure that this happens. We have already announced a ground-breaking deal with Net Zero Teesside, our first power CCUS project. We are developing a hydrogen-to-power business model to derisk investment in that area. Ofgem will be introducing the cap and floor scheme to support investment in long-term duration electricity storage. We aim to open the scheme to applications in quarter 2 of 2025. We fully take on board the point that the noble Baroness makes and the Select Committee report.

COP 29

Debate between Baroness Hayman and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath

Thursday 28th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, who raises a very important issue. In fact, during or around the time of the COP 29 discussions, we announced £5 million to help developing countries tackle methane emissions from their fossil fuels. This is supporting delivery of the global methane pledge launched at COP 26. However, I am very happy to take a further look at this and to respond to the noble Lord in some detail about what further actions we might take on this important matter.

[Baroness Hayman (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chair of Peers for the Planet. There were two COPs this year but as far as I could see, in the Statement there was only one passing reference to nature, yet biodiversity loss and climate change are profoundly integrated and intertwined challenges. Does the Minister recognise that we need to find the policy synergies to address both issues and to manage the trade-offs that sometimes need to be made? Can he also think about where we could make a start with some integrated language in the Great British Energy Bill?

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

That is quite a challenge from the noble Baroness. When we come to Committee next Tuesday, we will certainly discuss this issue further, but I very much take her point about nature and biodiversity. She is also right to highlight that there are sometimes tensions. Yesterday we had an Oral Question on the use of farmland for solar farm development; there is clearly a tension there that has to be managed, and I very much accept the challenge she described.