Heat Pumps

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Monday 22nd March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My noble friend well reflects my correspondence—I am receiving a lot of letters on this important issue at the moment. A call for evidence was issued in 2018 on how further to improve EPC accuracy and reliability and how these changes can be implemented. As my noble friend may be aware, the Government have published an EPC action plan detailing a series of actions that we can take to improve EPCs.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB) [V]]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that if all our demand for heat as a nation goes electric, at peak heat requirement we will need five times the current peak electricity generating capacity, and that does not include any extra demand for electric cars and transport? What will the Government do to ensure that we have the correct and renewable generating capacity to cater for this revolution?

Renewable Energy

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to (1) harness the potential of tidal ranges to generate renewable energy, and (2) encourage the private sector to invest in this area.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I have put down this Question for debate because I believe that, in our uncertain world, it is imperative that the UK plays to its strengths, and in energy one of its real strengths is the range of its tides. Whereas at somewhere such as Gibraltar the tidal range is only about one metre, it can be eight metres in the Solway Firth or higher than 15 metres in the Bristol Channel. We also have tidal races around our shores and between our islands which flow at great speeds and with considerable power.

Of course, tidal power output is classed as intermittent, but it is a guaranteed and predictable supply. We know now how much power we can produce from a given site between the hours of, say, 6 am and 8 pm on today’s date in 2121. I say 2121 because, if we build a tidal lagoon now, we know that it will still be producing electricity, almost for free, in over 100 years’ time. We will be like the Norwegians, who get their current electricity for almost nothing because they harnessed their natural hydropower advantage many years ago.

Tidal power is our natural advantage, and we must harness it as soon as we can. Our territorial waters include around half of the European tidal resource. We have tidal races in the Solway Firth and the Severn Bore, with speeds of six and 15 miles per hour respectively. We have 11 out of 60 of the world’s top tidal bores and we must harness them. We also have tidal races between our islands, such as in the Pentland Firth or the infamous Gulf of Corryvreckan. Research in Shetland and Orkney has shown that anchored floating barges with large turbines underneath are an effective way of tapping into these races, albeit with each barge providing only up to five megawatts. But together, and from the north to the south of the country, they could create an attractive and constant supply, as could the Deep Green slow-current kite system being trialled by Minesto off north Wales.

There are also possibilities for barrages, especially where they provide other services such as transport links that enhance their cost-benefit analysis. Morecambe Bay is a very good example here, giving access and a much-needed economic boost from the M6 to Barrow-in-Furness in west Cumbria.

To me, the most compelling solution for harnessing our tidal power are large offshore tidal lagoons. Any site with a depth of between five and 10 metres and a tidal range in excess of five metres can produce guaranteed power. They are better than a barrage across a bay, because you can have turbines all round and not just on one side. This means they are almost half the price per output of power. They are different from the Swansea Bay barrage and other shore-to-shore barrages. They can be any shape—oblong, square, round or rectangular —and curve in any direction to follow exactly the required underwater contours for producing maximum return on investment. For instance, a 16 square kilometre lagoon planned for the Solway Firth would produce 350 megawatts.

There are about 20 ideal sites around the UK coastline. I invite your Lordships to imagine a wall of water in the Severn estuary that is about the height of this Chamber and several miles long. That is the sort of power that the Severn can produce four times a day. One lagoon in Bridgwater Bay alone, right next door to Hinkley Point, could produce 1,900 megawatts.

The advantages of these lagoons are many. First, unlike coal-fired, gas or nuclear power stations, they do not have to be shut down for repairs. If a turbine needs servicing, it is only one of 20 or 30. It is lifted out for maintenance and the effect on output is minimal as the rest just keep turning. Secondly, they do not upset shipping traffic in any serious way, because they sit at the side of any shipping channel in waters normally too shallow for large ships. Thirdly, their environmental effect makes only peripheral difference to the course of the tide, migratory fish, wading birds and so on. They have the support of the RSPB, Friends of the Earth, the WWF and other environmental NGOs.

There are numerous sites for these lagoons in the UK, from north to south. With a seven-hour tidal difference between Bristol and Solway, and with the tides being used on both the flood and the ebb, that gives an almost consistent baseload power for England, even before we tap into the Scottish tidal ranges. Tidal lagoons could provide three times the capacity of Hinkley Point.

However, the UK supply chain desperately needs government engagement now. What the industry is seeking from the Government is enough support to allow for an initial project currently planned for the Solway Firth at a contract for difference strike price of £82 per megawatt hour for 25 years. The latest wind auction costs were at £57 per megawatt hour, to which one has to add £20 to deliver predictable power, so £77 for wind compared to £82 for a first-of-its-kind tidal power project compares very favourably, and is certainly much better than nuclear. Just remember the huge costs of the early wind farm contracts before its industry costs began to fall. The same rapid drop in costs would almost certainly happen to tidal power as the skills develop. Think, too, of the export potential of those skills; Canada, Alaska, Argentina, Chile and France all have suitable estuaries.

It is thought that, after this pilot project, subsequent tidal lagoons could have a strike price of £60 per megawatt hour, or even less, which brings the technology well into line with offshore wind schemes, and clearly well below the latest nuclear strike price. However—and this is important—even with the pilot project in Solway, if you take the mid-case forecast for wholesale electricity prices, it is likely that for the final decade of the support contract, the Treasury would actually make money from the Solway project. Then, after the first 25 years, for the following 100 years, the cost of the electricity would be minimal. Think of the benefit of that to UK industry, particularly in comparison with the relative short-termism of the more expensive nuclear options.

Above all, what we need from today’s debate is a clear signal from the Government that they would in principle support a value-for-money tidal lagoon proposition, or at least negotiate seriously with the main players. This would allow the businesses concerned to move forward and begin to create this exciting new industry here in the UK. As I said, we have the tidal strength in the UK—more than any other country in the world—and we must play to our strengths and harness our tidal power now.

Higher Education and Research Bill

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Committee: 7th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 30th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, while I strongly support the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn—the points he made were absolutely right and I hope the Minister will be able to address some of them—I would like to concentrate my remarks on Amendments 493, 494 and 495, which are in the names of my noble friend Lord Sharkey and I and the noble Lords, Lord Cameron of Dillington and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.

In outlining the desirable functions of the research councils, Clause 89 is far too narrowly defined, particularly subsection (4)(a). Amendment 493 recognises the importance of resilience as a fundamental requirement for the UKRI landscape. While a significant amount of the research funded by research councils should rightly contribute to growth—and most certainly does—a significant amount of research council investment directly benefits the economy by avoiding cost, rather than increasing income. Both these funding objectives are important and contribute to the UK’s resilience. Equally, by retaining a broad scientific capability across the research councils, the UK retains the ability to be resilient when under threat or pressure.

In his earlier remarks on his amendments the noble Lord, Lord Mendelsohn, stressed the importance of the arts and social science in this respect but the impact of other areas of science is equally important. Successive Governments have cut back on our national capability to generate scientific advice, and thereby resilience, by privatising government laboratories such as the government chemist, which is within LGC, the National Physical Laboratory and the Forensic Science Service, which was the last to go into 2012. I am not making a negative comment about privatisation, but once the Government could no longer rely on them for advice, an element of national resilience went at the same time.

Particularly since the mid-1990s, right across government, departmental resource for in-house science research has dropped dramatically. Since 2010 it has virtually disappeared from some departments, so it is a rather academic exercise to say whether it should be included within UKRI or elsewhere, because most of it has gone. The only way the Government can get a great deal of that hard scientific advice is, yes, through their own advisory services, but from the research councils. The need for the research councils to maintain capacity to train a body of scientists to carry out research on all manner of possible events—from avian flu to erupting volcanoes, from BSE to the El Niño effect—and to support the efforts of organisations such as the Met Office, the Antarctic service, Rothamsted and the Diamond accelerator has never been greater. It is the research councils which generally develop the skills at PhD and postgraduate level to supply those cadres.

Amendment 494 follows in a similar vein. Clause 89(4)(b) clearly recognises that research councils should have regard to the desirability of “improving quality of life”. It would be odd if they did not want that, which is clearly an essential element of government. This amendment would go much further by adding that research councils should support research activity that seeks to improve quality of life by seeking to enhance,

“social inclusion and community cohesion”.

When I wrote these amendments, I did not know how appropriate they would become as the threats to social inclusion and community cohesion, both here and abroad, become even greater. Using scientific research to make our lives simply better, rather than wealthier, seems an objective well worth pursuing.

However, Amendment 495 is in many ways the most significant in this small group. I hope that when he responds, the Minister will either accept this in its entirety or, if not, find a suitable set of words to convey the same meaning. A huge, although I believe unintended, consequence of the Bill, along with the emergence of UKRI as a new accounting body for UK science, is that the future success of UK science will be judged by its economic rather than its societal impact. Each should have parity of esteem. The principal role of fundamental or discovery science is to improve the nation’s science and knowledge base. Everything else flows from that, which should be an objective in its own right. While research councils must guard against their presumed inability to draw to an end certain funding lines of inquiry, we should never be so risk-averse that we do not try to fund risky ventures but always try to fund winners. Some of the greatest fundamental science had absolutely no outcome at the time it was developed, yet has proved incredibly powerful across the world.

[Lord Cameron of Dillington (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 493, 494 and 495, to which I have added my name. I must declare interests as chair of the advisory board of CEH, a trustee at Rothamsted and chair of the strategic advisory board of the Government’s Global Food Security programme. As has been explained, these amendments are designed to broaden the vision of the purposes of the research to take place under the councils within UKRI. It is wrong for the primary focus of Clause 89(4)(a) to be pinpointed solely on economic growth. To my mind, that is a throwback to the bad old days of the 1980s, when competing in the marketplace at all costs was considered the primary purpose of life. We soon realised that that was not sustainable. I say that as a past member of the Round Table on Sustainable Development, so I use “sustainable” in that context advisedly.