Great British Energy Bill

Debate between Lord Petitgas and Lord Howell of Guildford

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I have one question, prompted by my noble friend’s proposed amendment, about a major solar-based renewable project that was mentioned in White Papers under the previous Government; I think the former Secretary of State under the Conservative Government called it a project of central significance to the whole transition and net-zero aspiration.

It was in Morocco. They were planning, with financial support—a subsidy—from the Moroccan and British Governments, a colossal solar-based system to transmit electricity under the Bay of Biscay via a special new kind of transmission cord now being developed in Scotland. It would have delivered a final amount of 3.6 gigawatts of electric power into the British system. Going forward, that would remain a considerable contribution to our clean electricity of the future. Is the project still part of the scene under the new Government? If it is, will GB Energy have any role in it, because it is a very important factor in our overall energy needs?

[Lord Petitgas (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a link between Amendments 118, 118A and 130.

On Amendment 130, it will be interesting to see whether we get the results, but my impression is that, in this country, there is not a single net-zero or renewable project that is not subsidised by the Government in some way. In fact, that is one reason why there has been so much private capital: with the electricity price being run off the marginal cost of gas turbines and the marginal cost of renewable energy—particularly from wind farms—being zero, in effect, there is no way not to make money in that business.

This raises a question around the subsidisation of the whole system, including whether GBE should pile in further when it is already subsidised. It also raises the question of whether we need GBE, because we already have private capital in the system. In fact, we probably have more wind energy than anybody else in the G7. We have said this before. There is a lot of private capital coming into this industry.

The real question is less about GBE and more about what level of subsidisation we are prepared to put in. This may explain why we have the highest energy costs in the G7—double those of the US. This morning, my noble friend Lord Howell talked about Stargate and the announcement made by the US. We will find it very difficult to compete—let alone not having the money, our energy costs are double those of the US—if we want to run LLMs and supercomputers.