Electricity Generation

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 7th November 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I recognise and pay tribute to my noble friend’s expertise on this; having been in post for only eight weeks, I am sure that there is much that I can take away from him. However, I emphasise that the report has been prepared independently by Ofgem. It is important to acknowledge that the projections of future electricity capacity are dependent on a range of assumptions. I hear clearly what the noble Lord says about the nuclear power stations having extended life. All I can say to reassure him is that there are a lot of discussions going on and much of that will be relevant to what he has raised.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

My Lords, could the Minister give the House some figures, please? What is the total installed generation capacity required to meet our peak demand and what is she going to do about it?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I am sorry, but I missed part of that.

[Lord Kennedy of Southwark]

Could the Minister give the House some figures, please? What does she think is the total installed generation capacity needed to ensure that we meet our peak demand?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, I reassure the noble Lord and the House that we have enough capacity to ensure that the lights do not go out. We have been in this place before. As noble Lords will know, in the last decade we had a similar prediction that we would have a drop in supply, but of course the lights remained on. We are working with all our efforts to ensure that, through renewables, gas and coal, those lights stay on.