Electricity: Cost-competitiveness

Debate between Lord Callanan and Lord Tyrie

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, we are already a leader in the offshore wind sector: we had the largest amount of offshore wind production in the world, although we have now been overtaken by China. We have the first, second, third and fourth-largest wind farms in the world already operating in UK waters—but we have ambitions to go even further. That includes investing in ports, and we have the offshore wind manufacturing investment scheme and the floating offshore wind investment scheme, bringing together government and business to make sure that we develop these new technologies and, more importantly, locate the supply chains for them in the United Kingdom.

[Lord Tyrie (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the leading expert in the field is probably Professor Dieter Helm of the University of Oxford, who has been arguing for a long time that the true cost of wind power has been greatly understated in government publications, not least because they do not take full account of the intermittency of wind power and its effects on gas generation, which in turn has to be turned on and off at considerable extra cost. As he has identified, this is one of the major hidden costs of net zero. Can the Government now review their estimates of intermittency thoroughly and fundamentally, using some of Professor Helm’s work, and come back to us with what they think are the most considered estimates?

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

We already have considered estimates—work on this is going on all the time. It is a constantly evolving picture, and we take into account the views of all experts. It is undoubtedly true that renewables are intermittent: we had huge amounts of solar earlier this week, but, looking at the weather outside, I think we will not have quite so much today. That is why we need a diversified supply—nuclear, long-term storage and intermittent storage—to take account of the fact, which we know is true, that renewables are cheap, effective and quick to deploy, but they are intermittent, which is why we need a variety of technologies.