Infrastructure Planning (Electricity Storage Facilities) Order 2020

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate. I thank my noble friend the Minister for introducing this piece of legislation.

I presume that this legislation is potentially very exciting, if it means that we rely less on, and reduce our dependency on, nuclear, at a time when there is a great question mark over what nuclear facilities will be built. Is my noble friend in a position to say whether the Government or an organisation such as the National Infrastructure Commission have done an audit of the number of current facilities? My noble friend mentioned one, but there are multiples of 49 gigawatts round about. Do we know how many there are and where they are based?

I want to make a plea to the Government through my noble friend the Minister. As far as possible, where renewable energy is to be stored in this way, can it be stored as close as possible to the source of the energy’s production? For example, if it is from wind farms, which are often deeply unpopular if they are onshore, can it be stored as close to the source as possible, and can it be used by the local community? My noble friend has not said that there will any grief but, as the right reverend Prelate alluded to, there sometimes is in local communities, and we need to carry them with us. This could be a massive gain. Having got an onshore wind farm, local communities will then go on to benefit from a constant stream of renewable energy, once the energy has been released from the battery storage.

Can my noble friend say a bit about how electricity is to be stored once it has been released back into the national grid? As far as I am concerned, overhead pylons are a complete no-no. We do not way any more of them. I frequently visit my family in Demark, and I see these massive low-lying overhead pylons. They are very unsightly and they are generally dangerous for low-flying aircraft and helicopters. They could also have an impact on greater use of the new generation of drones that is coming along. That is yet another argument for why electricity should stay as local as possible to the source of its production. Can my noble friend rule out electricity being transported by overhead pylons as it comes on stream? Can my noble friend also confirm that this will help us to deliver low-carbon heating? If that is the case, how would that progress?

I confess that I am not sure how battery storage works. Can my noble friend assure me that, if this is to be treated as part of our critical infrastructure—as in the terms of Sir Michael Pitt’s report and the review following the massive surface water floods that we had in 2008—any electricity storage unit covered by the planning procedure before us today, however large it may be, will not be stored in a flood plain or an area that is potentially prone to flooding? Obviously, if it can be buried at sea, this is not an issue, but I would like my noble friend to put my mind at rest that we will not face challenges by losing electricity that has been stored in this way because of a future flood.

I broadly welcome the thrust of the order. The fact that it has not attracted a huge amount of public interest is obviously reassuring. It fills the gap between renewable energy that cannot be stored and being in a position to store it and bring it back on stream at such a time as it is required. Can my noble friend put my mind at rest that we will carry local communities with us, that electricity will be used as close to the source of its provision as possible, and that we will not have any hideous infrastructure such as pylons as a result of what we are passing today?