Wind Farms (Mid-Wales)

Charles Hendry Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2011 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Charles Hendry)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Riordan, at the end of a fascinating and stimulating debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire (Glyn Davies) on securing it, and on how he introduced it. I am glad that he has overruled his surgeon’s advice and come here to ensure that his constituents’ voices on this issue are heard clearly. There is no doubting the passion, commitment and integrity that he brings to the debate.

I am also pleased that, as the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) said, the issue transcends national boundaries. We have heard from Scotland and parts of England. It is not just a debate about mid-Wales; it has spread to every part of this country. We have no doubt whatever about the strength of feeling represented. I reassure him at the outset that I believe that onshore wind has a role to play, but it must be in the right location, and it must have more democratic support. We regularly hear hon. Members of all parties express the feeling that too often, onshore wind is imposed on communities that do not want it. I am keen to ensure that we address that democratic deficit constructively in our plans.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) and my hon. Friends the Members for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), and for Wells (Tessa Munt) for their contributions, as well as to those who intervened in this debate. I think that we agree broadly that there is no question but that we must become a low-carbon economy; I welcome the Opposition spokesman’s supportive comments on that. Becoming a low-carbon economy will require enormous work and a great deal of investment. Perhaps £200 billion will need to be spent in the next 10 to 15 years on new generation, transmission and distribution, so that we can build secure supplies of low-carbon generation.

It is also absolutely clear that we cannot rely too heavily on one form of low-carbon technology. The last Government were perhaps a bit of a one-stick golfer in that regard, and did not see enough of the opportunities elsewhere. That is why we have put additional focus on developing marine and tidal power as technologies that can make a big contribution in the decades to come. We also have strong ambitions for offshore wind and are implementing measures to take it forward, alongside biomass, bio-energy, new nuclear power without public subsidy, and carbon capture and storage. We recognise that some low-carbon technologies are not as cheap as onshore wind, but the costs will decrease over time as the technologies become more mature. It is crucial, as I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham will agree, that we maintain that diverse energy mix.

[Daniel Kawczynski]

One reason why our national policy is perhaps not as developed as we would like is that the previous Labour Administration had, I believe, nine Energy Ministers in 11 years. The constant changing of Ministers by Labour Prime Ministers impeded progress within the Department. I look forward to seeing the Minister in his position for many years to come and wish him success. Returning briefly to mid-Wales, I will send the Minister a map of the national grid, with which I am sure he is familiar. The developers could not have found a site further away from the national grid than the proposed site if they had tried. Transporting the energy to the national grid will affect the most people.

[Charles Hendry]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind comments. I have been in office for nearly a year, so by past records, I am up for replacement. I think that it was actually 16 Ministers in 13 years. I hope that I will have the chance to stay around a little longer to ensure that we end up in a sensible place on these policy matters.

The hon. Member for Ogmore asked about the fourth carbon budget. He knows very well that I will not comment on leaked or supposedly leaked documents, but the Government understand totally the need to take the issues extremely seriously and put in place a robust set of targets and mechanisms to drive forward our ambition and our ability to respond. I will reply more directly in a moment to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham on the important grid issues.

It is clear from all the studies that I have seen that the United Kingdom has some of the best wind resources in Europe. Wind turbines tend to generate electricity about 70% to 80% of the time—not necessarily at full capacity, but during that time, they are turning and generating some electricity. Wind, unlike most other sources of electricity generation, is a free and unlimited source of fuel. It is also reliable overall—the likelihood is that low wind speeds will affect half the country for fewer than 100 hours a year. The chance of turbines shutting down due to very high wind speeds is low.

Onshore wind is one of the most cost-effective and established renewable technologies. We have to make sure that we take account of the needs of consumers by ensuring that they do not pay more than is necessary to decarbonise our electricity supplies. We can do that by making sure that onshore wind has a continuing role. However, although it is clear that onshore wind should continue to be part of the solution to the massive energy security and low-carbon challenges that we face as a nation, it needs more democratic legitimacy than it has today, and I intend to ensure that that happens.

We have to protect communities from unacceptable developments. We have already started to review the issues that often cause concern to local communities. We recently published a report on shadow flicker from wind turbines—an issue that the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock mentioned—and we have commissioned a report on wind turbine noise. We must now go much further. Wind turbines should be positioned where the wind resource is strongest, so this year we are introducing a full review of the funding mechanism of the renewables obligation certificates to ensure that subsidies will not make it attractive to put wind farms in unsuitable locations. The funding mechanism must also reflect reductions in costs.

The cost of grid connections also means that there is an incentive to put wind farms closest to where the electricity is needed, rather than where the wind is strongest. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham has made an extremely important point about the disconnection between areas identified for development and accessibility to the national grid, and the impact that that has on communities. That is why Ofgem’s fundamental review of the way in which transmission charges are levied is so important. It is also why the Government made clear at the start of Ofgem’s review that the transmission charging regime must deliver security of supply as well as low-carbon generation. It is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that the charges that consumers pay for renewable energy are as efficient as possible.

Most importantly of all, there needs to be a new relationship between wind farms and the communities that host them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) said. At present, too often a community can see what it will lose but not what it will gain by having a wind farm in its midst. That is why we have been exploring the financial mechanisms that should emerge to support communities that decide to host wind farms—particularly in England, where we have more responsibility for these matters—and that do more to encourage such community developments. “Community energy online” is a scheme whereby local groups can come together and look at what will be the best renewable energy schemes for their community. I am absolutely convinced that we have to address the issue of democratic accountability and public acceptability. The more these schemes can be seen to come from the ground up—that is not intended to be a pun—and to be developed with community support, the more we can deal with the democratic deficit.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

I thank the Minister for giving way. I have a straightforward question. Given what the Minister has just said, the changes that the Localism Bill will make and the desire to address the democratic deficit, does he intend there to be more development of onshore wind than in the past decade and more? Is he hopeful that more communities will take up onshore wind development?

[Charles Hendry]

I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s question shows that he does not quite understand localism. Localism does not mean that I, the Minister, say that I want more or less; it means that I want communities to decide how they want to develop. Once they have seen what will be available to them, the package of benefits and the direct support that will come to their communities, they will rightly get involved in and make those decisions. Clearly, a few of the large developments will still need to come to Ministers once the Infrastructure Planning Commission has been abolished, so those will be national issues. What we are keen to see is appropriate development in appropriate locations with community support. That will be one of the most significant changes under this Administration.

To answer a point made by the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, the Localism Bill will provide specific measures to enable communities to shape development in their own locality. That is clearly a matter for England rather than Scotland, but we hope that the new Scottish Government will look at whether they can follow in some of those areas.

We have heard much about the issues relating to technical advice note 8, and I understand the concerns that have been expressed. The process is carried out by the Welsh Assembly Government, and TAN 8 identifies seven strategic search areas where major wind farms, which are defined as those over 20 MW, should be located. Three of those—areas B, C and D—are in mid-Wales, which is why we have seen more applications for development in those areas than elsewhere. A review of that approach would have to be carried out by the Welsh Assembly Government. As a Minister who may be required to make some of those decisions, I know that we are talking about not a binding requirement but a material consideration, and applications outside those areas can also be considered.

A related issue—I know that this is of concern to my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne)—is the knock-on consequences for the grid infrastructure of the way in which those areas have been chosen, and the possible impact in England and other areas outside those covered by TAN 8. That is a material issue that has to be looked at in more detail, because one simply cannot put in place a new development without the grid infrastructure to support it. That is the issue to which I now turn.

There is no existing high-voltage network in mid-Wales, so the necessary infrastructure will have to be built. The options are currently being developed by the National Grid Company and SP Manweb. The applications for those connections will be decided by the appropriate planning authorities, which may include Ministers, so I am constrained in what I can say on specific issues. However, to respond to a point made by the hon. Member for Ogmore, we expect a further consultation on specific routes to be completed by the end of the year. We can learn more about how that consultation process works. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow is concerned that sometimes it involves the National Grid Company and not the developers together. I think that people involved in the consultation process would prefer to see all the parties coming together.

The report commissioned by KEMA and the Institution of Engineering and Technology is being refined—not by us, but by the organisations themselves—to make sure that it takes full account of the data collection available and the technical analysis. I hope that it will be published soon. It will certainly give us a much more factual basis for understanding the costs of undergrounding in appropriate parts of the country, and of putting the grid connections undersea. The enormous number of parliamentary questions that I have been asked and letters that I have received on the subject as part of a national campaign mean that I am in no doubt whatever about how strongly my hon. Friends and other Members feel about the grid connection issues. I know that the National Grid Company takes the issue extremely seriously. It is required to look at both the costing and the environmental and social issues.

Ofgem’s recent transmission price control proposals, known as RIIO, or “revenue = incentives + innovation + outputs”, include incentives that should allow visual amenity to be properly assessed in conjunction with the planning process. We hope that the national policy statements can be published in the near future. As the hon. Member for Ogmore knows, we are holding them back until we have the interim report on new nuclear. The lessons from Fukushima are being looked at by the nuclear regulator, but I hope that we will be in a position to publish those shortly.

Finally, on construction traffic and the impact it may have, I am aware that the road infrastructure was not designed for the sort of transportation in which huge turbines are carried through small villages on small country roads. There has to be a solution to the problem. Individual developments have to address the issue in a constructive way. There has to be a satisfactory conclusion before a development can take place.

I hope that I have responded to many of the issues raised. This has been a fascinating and important debate. Again, I am most grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Montgomeryshire for defying medical advice to be here to raise such a critical issue.