Gas-fired Power Stations
Debate between Graham Stuart and Bob Blackman(7 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Across London and the south-east, many much-needed developments that are required for the increasing population have literally been frozen because of a lack of supply from the grid. Nuclear power can provide the baseload; renewables are unreliable, and obviously gas is required at peak times in particular. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is all about topping up the grid at peak times, when people want to use electricity, because gas is the fastest way to bring a power station on to the grid and is also the fastest to shut down?
Graham Stuart
My hon. Friend will be aware of all the work we are doing to speed up transmission. We are halving the timeline from 12 to 14 years to seven, and the connections action plan has already moved forward connection dates for projects amounting to 40 GW. We are putting in a lot of work across the piece. This gas capability is there as a back-up, but the usage and the emissions resulting from it will fall precipitately over the next 10 years, and we can all celebrate that.