Nuclear Power Stations

Lord Fox Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend is of course absolutely correct that nuclear power itself is a means of reducing carbon emissions, and it will remain part of our electricity generation mix—necessarily so, as it is already 20% at present. When Hinkley Point comes online it will represent 7% of the overall electricity generated in the entire United Kingdom. It is therefore important that we are able to ensure that nuclear remains a component part of our offering and our energy reduction. It is also important to recognise that one of the conditions of the nuclear strategy which we have put forward—the £200 million fund—is that there is a significant reduction in the cost of the production of nuclear energy. That will represent a 20% reduction overall, which must be part of that strategy. We are alert to these issues. Again, the time is right for a proper debate on the wider questions, which I suspect my noble friend would have raised had we had more time.

[Lord Fox (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the new Minister to his position. He will be aware that I usually use this opportunity to conflate nuclear power with energy storage. With high-capacity energy storage, the need for nuclear becomes much less critical. There are also short-term issues around storage, which we saw on 9 August, when there were blackouts across large swathes of England. The cost of replacing that short-term storage is about £1 billion to double it to 2,000 megawatts. What is the Government’s plan for storage, what money is available, and how is it being invested to deliver a robust system?