Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Roper
Lord Roper
My Lords, I made a brief reference to voltage optimisation earlier in the Grand Committee’s proceedings. I referred to the very useful lunch organised by the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, where a number of us were able to learn from members of the trade association what was being done. In the rather steep learning curve on the topic of energy that I have experienced over the last 12 months, that was one of the high points, given that not only has the UK been a pioneer with this technology, but it is very effective, both at the level of the large consumer and, in other ways, at that of social housing.
I will make one suggestion to the Minister, if I may. We discussed earlier the situation laid down in Clause 37 of a pilot scheme or schemes for electricity demand reduction and the possibility of the Government setting up or examining pilot schemes to see what could be done. It seems to me that voltage optimisation is one of the areas that could come under what we have already considered in Clause 37. I would be interested to know whether the Minister feels that there is any chance of considering it within that framework.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I am sorry not to have been able to be here earlier. I declare an interest, given that in the past I have assisted firms of this kind to try to get a wider application of their equipment. There are certain drawbacks with this, but what I find so interesting is that it is a particularly British problem. It is simply because we have gone along with a voltage that is out of line with that of other people. Given that everybody manufactures to a voltage that is common elsewhere, we have something that is less than optimal. That is all. If the system is less than optimal we waste significant amounts of energy and our equipment works less sensibly and wears out more quickly.
I do not to repeat what the Committee is perfectly well aware of but simply to say that this is another example of how much can be done in very simple and small ways, which all add up. One of the things that worries me about governments of all kinds—this is not a comment about the present or the previous Government—is that small things that add up do not get the same attention as big things that very often do not add up at all. There seems to be a kind of desire to do things people will take note of, rather than understand how much there is which, if we add it up, makes a huge difference.
I do not want to go over it all, but I am sure that there has been a significant saving of energy simply because kettles now show you how much water has been put in, so that you know what you need for a cup of tea and do not put in too much. All those simple mechanisms actually make a difference. The trouble is that people tend to laugh at them, because in themselves each one does not matter. If we had voltage optimisation as a built-in feature of every new home, for example, and if it was automatically offered in every circumstance, we would save a significant amount of energy.
I therefore hope my noble friend will be able to say that her department will concentrate on the small things that add up but which will not get headlines in the Guardian. That is the fact. Let us see if we can do some of that because it would certainly make a big difference to meeting our energy demands.
Energy Bill
Debate between Lord Deben and Lord Roper
Lord Roper
My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Lord Jenkin, I shall move the amendment on his behalf.
My noble friend tabled this amendment earlier this month after discussions with the Wood Panel Industries Federation about the impact of the purchase of biomass upon the supplies of UK-grown softwoods and the viability of the UK-based wood processing companies which make materials such as MDF, chipboard and oriented strand board. Their worry arises because the current subsidies to wood-burning power plants make it increasingly difficult for member firms to compete for supplies. There are no subsidies available for them. They cannot afford to import supplies as it is uneconomic to transport saw wood because of its high water content and they are finding it increasingly difficult to compete. If this industry is driven out of business by the competition from biomass power stations it will be, in their view, difficult to ever revive. They see themselves as having far less influence than the major energy firms in their representations to government.
Interestingly, in Scotland the devolved Government have introduced a cap on support for dedicated biomass plans above 15 megawatts and have used planning restraints to restrict domestic wood use. If energy generators in England were required to provide a domestic fuel sourcing plan for approval by Ministers, this would give a far stronger reassurance than is conferred by any voluntary statement of sourcing intent. That is what the amendment of my noble friend Lord Jenkin is intended to secure. I beg to move.
Lord Deben
My Lords, I think it is valuable that my noble friends Lord Jenkin and Lord Roper have put this amendment forward. Although I do not support its content, it is an important subject to have raised briefly in this Committee. One difficulty that we have to face is that the way that renewable materials are considered alters very quickly. There was a time when people talked about biomass as though it was the solution to everything. They hardly ever spoke about biomass without saying how wonderful it was. Then we saw the pendulum swing to the other end and no sort of biomass was acceptable to anyone. There was always some good reason why it was not acceptable. In rather a long life, I have usually found that neither of those two positions is a good place for the pendulum, although somewhere in the middle is.
However, there is a central issue which goes beyond biomass. It is illustrated by a circumstance in my own county of Suffolk, where the local council has just turned down a request to build a waste-to-energy installation using straw. The argument against it was not an environmental one. It was a genuine argument about whether it and other straw-burning waste-to-energy installations would have such an appetite for straw locally that the price for straw would increase because of the subsidy structure. The other uses of straw in the area, which were very significant and led to opposition to the installation from pig farmers and others, meant that the planning committee had to say that it did not see that this was the right answer. I am not at all sure that that was the planning reason that it gave, because planning is a rather complex matter, but that was certainly what the argument was about.
I hope that this Committee, the Standing Committee and our future discussions in your Lordships’ House can lead the charge for having sensible discussions about environmental matters and not arguments between those who believe in things and those who do not. Very often, the decision and the choice come somewhere between the two, and this issue illustrates that very well. It is perfectly possible to be an enthusiastic environmentalist determined to combat climate change but to say that a particular straw-burning installation in a particular place is not the answer. The same applies to biomass. However, that does not mean that you are taking a nimby attitude. I am not talking about people objecting to something because it is near to them; I am talking about having more serious discussions about individual issues than is often allowed simply because the two sides clash and the space in between is not available for intelligent debate.
On this matter, it is important that two things are taken into account. First, how does the subsidy—that is what it is—affect other industries; and are there circumstances in which we should look at that carefully? Secondly, how do we make sure that the subsidy is in support of biomass which is properly sourced? I do not want this particular solution although there is a bit that appeals to me: we should make sure that people do not use biomass that has a bigger carbon footprint than what it is replacing.
As chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, I recently received a delegation from America, which is exporting a lot of pellets into this country. I found the discussion rather embarrassing because, when I said to the people concerned, “Tell me, is this certified?”, they said, “Yes”. I asked, “By whom?”, and they replied “By us”. I said that I thought that certification ought to be a little more arm’s length than that. They claimed that all this stuff came from certified forests but I think that there is now some pretty good international measurement that enables one to decide whether “certified” means “certified” or whether it means, “This is a label that we like putting on it because, if we don’t, nobody will buy it”, which seemed to me closer to what they were actually saying.
It is important that we should raise this issue, both for the specifics of the amendment and to say to my noble friend that this is an area—I know that she understands this—where we are all concerned not to restrict biomass in such a way as to lose the real advantages, but not to extend it so that it becomes a front for a worse attitude towards the environment than that represented by the fuels it replaces.