Energy: Electricity Supply

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend raises a number of very important points. While I cannot answer for what the previous Government should have done, since 2010, the coalition Government have been working closely with Ofgem and National Grid to address the security of supply as a very high priority. A significant amount of potential capacity is available through de-mothballed plant and demand-side response. The measures being consulted on by National Grid and Ofgem would, if used, enable the procurement of the amount of capacity needed to ensure security of supply, allowing them to respond accordingly.

[Lord Dubs]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm that in the middle of last December the lights virtually went out because there was no spare capacity at all, and if the weather had got a shade colder, the lights would have gone out? Is it not time that we made some clear decisions about our fuel supply in this country?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right that we need to make some secure decisions. That is why, through the Energy Bill, we are reforming the electricity market and also making sure that we have a greater diversity in the supply of energy. A key part of balancing the service is the short-term operating reserve that we already have. The National Grid aims to have around 1,800 megawatts of this reserve available every day across a number of contracts, so I can reassure the noble Lord that the lights will stay on.