Energy Bill
Debate between Caroline Lucas and Andy Sawford
Caroline Lucas
I am delighted to hear the Minister say that. All I want to do is build on that wonderful beginning and make it go even faster with even more ambition. That is why I so hoped that he would support the amendments that go in exactly that direction. Seriously, I know that the Minister is deeply committed to the issue; I simply think that we could get there faster and with a bit more ambition by having a clearer strategy and focus.
Decentralised energy is not even formally defined in Government policy. I would have thought that it would be simpler if it were; that is one of the issues that my amendments would address. Of course, decentralised energy is already used in hospitals, schools, small towns and so forth, but its untapped potential remains vast. I cannot help thinking that if Ministers spent a fraction of the time promoting decentralised renewables that they spend promoting the nuclear industry, we might have a different kind of energy system today.
The amendments would create a new feed-in tariff scheme for distributed generation, with a maximum capacity limit of 50 MW. I am glad that I now understand the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger); I am delighted that the 10 MW was a bottom line rather than a top limit. The 50 MW was the level recommended by the Energy and Climate Change Committee and we should be more ambitious than the 5 MW that the Government currently foresee or the 10 MW ballpark figure from the official Opposition.
Finally, the amendments would require distribution network licence holders to play their part in facilitating decentralised energy. It is worth pointing out that a distributed generation feed-in tariff would involve no additional cost for consumers or the Treasury; it would simply provide an effective way for small generators to invest in electricity generation and participate in the market.
Again, the new clause is complementary to amendment 47 on a green power auction market and to Opposition amendment 1. I hope that the amendments can be taken together as a positive contribution to moving to decentralised energy in a swifter fashion.
Andy Sawford
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead).
A year ago, my hon. Friend and I, along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), wrote in a paper called “The Power Book” about the potential for community energy. We argued that as the new energy industrial revolution unfolds in this country, future technologies, new sources of renewables and low-carbon energy have huge scope to challenge the existing market, help reshape the relationships between people and power providers and create new agents of delivery. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test, who has been pioneering such work for some years—for example, he has championed the district heating project in Southampton as an MP and former local council leader.
I also want to mention such projects as the Baywind energy co-op in the Lake District, Watchfield in south Oxfordshire and Brixton Energy. There are increasing numbers of inner-city providers of community energy.
However, we have to be honest. The scale of such projects in this country is small compared with other countries. We should look to America, for example. Some 42 million American citizens, the equivalent of two thirds of the population of this country, are members of energy co-ops. The German example is even more impressive. Since 1990, German citizens have had a legal right to be producers and suppliers of electricity to their grid system. The big step change came a decade ago when their Government introduced a system of preferential feed-in tariffs. That transformed an energy sector that once had only four major suppliers into one that now has over 2 million contributors. It also created 400,000 jobs and has lowered prices, year on year, over the past five years.
Across the UK, local councils are rising to the challenge of transforming the energy sector. I have followed community energy projects around the country and I have profiled projects in Stoke, Stevenage, Kirklees and Sheffield. I am particularly pleased to welcome Electric Corby, which was launched in my constituency on Friday. It is a not-for-profit community interest company formed with the support of the borough council to establish the UK’s leading practical community-scale test centre for future low-carbon living and transportation and to redistribute the benefits of its labours to the Corby community. As the Minister will know, Electric Corby is funded via DECC’s Cheaper Energy Together switching competition. We welcome that support, but it is very much a local initiative.