Alan Whitehead
Main Page: Alan Whitehead (Labour - Southampton, Test)
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend and I may disagree about onshore wind, as I have visited many popular sites from which local communities see real benefits, but I agree that tidal and wave power has a big future. The Government, and especially the Minister for climate change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), have been active by allocating £20 million for tidal arrays and ensuring that the EU provides funding for other projects. Generous support has also been given through the renewables obligation certificate and contract for difference systems.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
Given the almost complete lack of movement on investment for all the permissioned sites for gas-fired power stations, the Department’s estimates of spiralling costs for the capacity market mechanism, the state aid difficulties with proposals for that mechanism and the mothballing of existing power stations, will the Secretary of State review the case for a strategic reserve mechanism, which his Department suggested in 2011 would be a far less expensive and more secure method of supplying future capacity?
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman is very knowledgeable about such matters, but our plans for the capacity market are on schedule, so the fears that he voices are not there. He talks about the benefits of a strategic reserve, which we debated during the passage of the Bill that became the Energy Act 2013, but what National Grid and Ofgem are doing in the short term has similarities with a strategic reserve, yet avoids the disadvantage of creating perverse incentives for the wider energy market.