Offshore Wind Substations: East of England

Claire Perry Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

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

Some might say that it is drawing the short straw to do a late Adjournment on such an important evening, but this debate on an incredibly important topic is far from it. It is also extremely timely, because it was only last week that we launched the offshore wind sector deal. I was lucky enough to fly over part of the developing East Anglia ONE wind farm and then to track the entire cable array back to the substation, and I should add that I offset the emissions.

I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) on securing the debate and allowing me the chance to think a little more about the subject, and perhaps to give him some reassurance. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who is here with me. She is unable to participate, but she has concerns about the proposal in Friston.

It is great to see my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) who, along with his constituents, made me and many others so very welcome last week. It is good to hear the value of the offshore wind sector deal to the community in Lowestoft, in addition to all the exciting opportunities for the fishing industry, about which he has been very clear.

The Norfolk and Suffolk coast is becoming a centre for low-carbon energy generation, which is an exciting prospect that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk points out, comes with some concerns. One of the reasons for wanting to focus on offshore wind is that it avoids the landscape impairment of giant wind turbines, which can be controversial from a planning point of view and can yield a lot less power. People describe offshore wind as better quality wind, as it blows 55% of the time in the North sea, compared with only 30% of the time onshore.

It is astonishing that we can build 197 wind turbines on one offshore farm, which would be very difficult to achieve onshore. That is why the sector deal states that we intend to triple generation from offshore wind over the next 11 years. We think offshore wind will contribute about 30% of our total energy consumption in 2030, at which point 70% of our energy consumption will be from low-carbon sources. Offshore wind will create thousands of jobs: 6,000 or so in the Lowestoft-Yarmouth area, and 27,000 across the UK. We think offshore wind can also help us capture about £3 billion of export opportunities, which is fantastic.

I emphasise that we have the largest market for offshore wind in the world, which is one of the reasons we have been so successful in decarbonising. Of course, in order to bring the power back, we have to join it to the grid at some point, which gets to the heart of my hon. Friend’s speech. We want to make sure that, as we develop this resource, we continue to bring communities with us—offshore wind should not be imposed on them.

We have to be clear that the two things to which my hon. Friend alluded, community involvement in planning and the integration of connection infrastructure, will be adequately addressed. Most of the proposed applications in Suffolk and Norfolk are at the pre-application stage, but the applications for Hornsea Project Three and Norfolk Vanguard are currently undergoing examination, and I understand my hon. Friend has been eloquent in his written and oral representations to the examiners on those projects.

My hon. Friend will understand that the final decision on applications for nationally significant infrastructure projects, including onshore connections, is made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, so I am unable to comment on the specific merits of those particular applications, but I emphasise that NSIP projects stress the importance of pre-application consultation. Developers have to prepare a consultation strategy, and they have to carry out a pre-application consultation with the local community in line with their plan. When they finally make their application, the report must show that they have addressed any concerns raised in the plan.

Of course, the Planning Inspectorate writes to local authorities to ask whether a plan is adequate. If the application is accepted, local people can, of course, continue to make their views known on the proposals. I understand that, in the case of the Suffolk proposals, the Planning Inspectorate is considering what measures it may be able to put in place to limit the need for local people to make the same points over and again. The inspectorate can basically build up a body of evidence and deliver on that. Within the current framework of the planning system, the message to developers is clear: they must consult local communities and ensure that they give serious consideration to their concerns before any decision can be made by the Secretary of State.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk pointed out, the system may have been inadequate when we had several connections coming onshore. As we continue to build up this resource, we could be dealing with dozens of applications and, in many ways, he represents the optimum point. We have the best resources for offshore wind in the world in the North sea, particularly in the southern North sea, because it is shallow and the wind blows a lot of the time. So we have historically had a point-to-point connection, and that has been a basis on which planning applications have been considered. A series of spokes have brought power onshore. That power is then taken some considerable distance inland in order to connect with the national grid and because the pathway of the cabling has to respect boundaries—it is a process of negotiation—the cables often do not go straight like motorways, but instead follow crooked pathways.

This point-to-point approach is considered to have represented a saving for consumers, with an estimate being at least a £700 million saving so far having been delivered by this connection. Of course, we are still in the infancy of developing these wind farms, so it is right that as the sector matures we consider the potential to connect adjacent projects offshore, linking them up as a ring main, as my hon. Friend said. The developers recognise that this is an important opportunity, as we could be bringing onshore one connection, perhaps a larger oversized connection, that brings in the power of many other wind farms across different development portfolios. Of course, we can also explore the possibility of interconnection with mainland Europe. Some exciting proposals have been made to have interconnectors that run through the middle of some very large wind developments going forward.

The system operator has a key role to play in determining this, working out the way to implement those projects and considering a charging regime for them. My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney has obviously read the sector deal with great interest, because as he said it contains a specific work strand to explore the way the connections are planned and developed. I want to emphasise how very exciting the sector deal is; for the first time, we have the developers and the supply chain in this extremely important industry working together, thinking about the opportunities and the need for co-working. In this space, there is a real appetite to sort this out and have a plan for the future.

As we develop those plans, my door is of course open to my hon. Friends who represent these important constituencies, and indeed to others who may wish to comment on this. It would be helpful to have scrutiny by the representatives sent to this place. It is clear that our approach needs to evolve if we are to maximise the potential that this fantastic resource delivers to provide us with low-carbon energy at the best value for consumers. I would like to finish by saying two things. The first is a big thank you to the local communities who are going through these processes right now, as they are really helping us to deliver a world-leading energy system. If we get this right, it will have far less of an imprint on the landscape than building the equivalent in terms of onshore scale.

[George Freeman]

I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to meet me and other MPs. I particularly wanted to mention the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), who, although happy with the current proposals, shares our view that we need a different proposal going forward. In the remaining moments, will she tackle the issue of what should be the approach for the benefit of a local community carrying national infrastructure? The people of Necton are feeling as though they are going to carry this and receive nothing. Is there any guidance or Government thinking to say that a community should benefit?

[Claire Perry]

If I may, I will take that point away, because my hon. Friend does raise an important question. Obviously, it is similar to others that have come up in respect of energy developments. Perhaps he and I can agree to meet to discuss that a little further. It is right that we make sure that the local communities who host these connections feel that it is worth their while to do so and that they have a minimal physical and environmental impact from allowing these connections to come through their precious space.

I wanted to say two other things. The first is that I am disappointed that we did not manage to work the pedlar of Swaffham into our remarks tonight, as we did so many years ago—perhaps we will be able to try again next time. Lastly, a very appropriate reason for having this debate is that the green heart hero awards were held in our wonderful House of Commons this evening. I am proud to wear my heart, and it was wonderful to see so many people, ranging from babies a few weeks old to people in their later years, absolutely committed, with full enthusiasm, to the sort of low-carbon future that we want to deliver. This is such a timely opportunity to talk about how we deliver that in a way that intelligently uses the grid and minimises the impact on the communities affected.

Question put and agreed to.