Energy: Home Battery Storage

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

Obviously there will be changes as more people make use of storage. That will have an effect on the grid because if some people increase their use of storage, they may even be able to go off-grid in future. The noble Baroness is right to draw the House’s attention to that issue. That is a matter for Ofgem; it can certainly look at that to make sure that it can create a level playing field for all consumers.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests in energy, as in the register. Is my noble friend aware—I am sure that he is—that offshore wind producers are now saying that they can produce electricity at £62.50 per megawatt hour? Of course, commercial storage will make it considerably lower, if we go for it. Does that not cast a shadow over the costs of the contract at Hinkley Point C, which are for £92.50 for the next 35 years, indexed? Is it not time to question some of these lavish expenditures, which are having very little effect on carbon reduction and greatly increasing the charges to poor consumers?

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, at this stage, I do not want to get into the wider question of Hinkley C costs. I think it would be rather dangerous for me to go down that route. My noble friend is right to say that increased use of home battery storage, possible greater use of batteries in cars as a means of storage in years to come and greater use of other forms of storage, which the noble Baroness and my noble friend referred to—he is probably aware that we already have about 5 gigawatts of storage in the system, which is mainly pumped hydroelectricity—have implications for costs throughout the grid, which will need to be addressed.