Geothermal Energy: Clackmannanshire

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Energy and Clean Growth (Claire Perry)]

What a very lively Adjournment debate. They rarely get as good as this: a seamless team effort from my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Luke Graham) and his colleagues focusing on a particularly fascinating new area of technology. It is a refreshing change to hear Members who are passionate about their Scottish constituencies, and who are prepared to stand up and work with the UK Government rather than just criticise and carp. That sense of working together to deliver this technology is very important.

I am delighted to be able to talk more about the Clackmannanshire geothermal energy project, which, as my hon. Friend rightly set out, looks to use a local resource from the legacy of decades of mining in a way that helps us to meet our renewable energy targets, and create jobs and innovation for the future. My hon. Friend made reference to our renewable energy successes. We are right, collectively across the UK, to be proud of them. Thanks to investment in innovation by UK taxpayers, working together north and south of the border, and east and west we are very much on target to achieve 30% energy supply from renewables by 2020. In fact, it looks as if we will go substantively beyond that. Scotland with its beauty—my hon. Friend alluded to it; his speech was a wonderful travel advert for his constituency—natural geographic advantages and engineering expertise has very much been in the forefront of that.

That brings me to the role of geothermal energy, which is a critical part of the renewable energy resource. It can be used in several ways, for example heat networks. The UK Government have set aside over £300 million to invest in district heat networks over the next few years. They are a really important way of bringing it forward. Deep geothermal power is another opportunity to create heat and generate power, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) discussed.

This is not about finding new resource. The mining legacy has created a lot of holes in the ground beneath our feet, which have filled up with water. The water has become heated and is now available without drilling deep wells. This is relatively easy to set up. I am proud to be working with the Coal Authority and others to consider how we might manage this mining legacy. Across the UK, it has recently been assessed that there are over 2 million GW hours of low-carbon energy stored in mine workings across the UK. I feel strongly that we should be looking at how to extract it.

As I said, there are several ways to use this very valuable resource. We can use it as heat to supply homes and businesses. It can help to deliver the clean growth aspects of our industrial strategy, because it can be used to provide heat to certain business sectors. It can also provide opportunities for energy through regeneration and storage. A lot of work is being done on storage capability. The problem with renewables is that they can be very intermittent. How do we store energy in a liquid state? Deep networks could be a way to help us to lead the world on this going forward. We are looking across the UK to see how we might exploit this great resource.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire eloquently and passionately set out, we have opportunities in Clackmannanshire to understand how we might use this local resource better. He set out the wider benefits from this potential source: not just lower cost lower carbon energy for his constituents, but creating businesses, creating innovation, creating jobs, reducing energy bills, reducing fuel poverty and reducing social inequalities. It could establish Clackmannanshire as a global authority on geothermal energy, attracting inward investment and innovation from other countries across the world. The Department and I are very keen to see more of such projects coming forward, because they deliver carbon savings, cost reductions and innovation.

We are working on heat networks. As my hon. Friend is well aware, there is a series of competences between the UK Government and the devolved Administration. Heat is a devolved matter, but energy is a reserved matter. There is, therefore, a huge area between the two parts of our government system where we have opportunities to work together on heat projects.

My hon. Friend and his constituency neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, should be patting themselves on the back for securing a city region deal worth more than £90 million to the region. The UK Government are investing more than £45 million, the Scottish Government are investing, the local councils are investing—it is truly a good example of partnership working. [Interruption.] As I said, it is always better when we work together—a message sometimes lost on Scottish National party Members.

This ambitious and innovative deal will drive economic growth across the region, innovation and research with at its heart, and also focus on the area’s incredible natural heritage. I think that we could expand the definition to include the mine workings and geothermal possibilities. That is what the Clackmannanshire geothermal energy project seeks to do, and my Department will absolutely support it, exploring potential funding routes and sharing learning from other networks from across the UK.

We are committed to supporting the project. We see opportunities for high-quality, cost-effective heating, for the creation of renewable energy and for the provision of many other benefits to the area. I am delighted that my hon. Friend has once again raised this opportunity and demonstrated the passion and commitment with which he and his constituents support it. It was encouraging to hear that other local businesses are already coming forward wanting to be part of it.

I hope that this debate can be the start of the process. It has allowed us to look at how we might fit the scheme into the various funding streams available. I would love to think it could be one of the first of many projects across the UK that will tap back into that resource beneath our feet. It is a resource that was created by the blood, sweat and tears of many thousands of fine working men—generally men—in the past, and it would be wonderful to use that legacy to help us to meet the targets of our renewable and low-carbon future.

My hon. Friend says it is a wee county but that it is not size that matters but what you do with it. It is a little late for that kind of commentary, so I will finish simply by commending him for doing such a superb job of standing up for his constituents and presenting the best way of combining the legacy of that wonderful area with some of the low-carbon energy solutions of the future.

Question put and agreed to.