Onshore Wind Farms

Lord Moynihan Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all her work in this field and for introducing that Bill. As far as getting on with it is concerned, there is nobody who wants to get on with it more than I do. The noble Lord, Lord Teverson, has drawn attention to the fact that we have probably 10.7 gigawatts or more of onshore wind capacity that could retire between 2027 and 2042, and those onshore farms will be completely lost if they retire without any repowering. So repowering is clearly essential, not only to keep those wind farms going on the same sites but because of the tremendous power gain that could come about by using modern turbine methods and modern blades to increase the output by perhaps up to two-thirds when those existing sites are repowered.

[Lord Moynihan (Con)]

My Lords, when considering repowering our intermittent wind energy when, to use the Minister’s words, the sun does not shine or the wind does not blow, does the Minister agree that the main energy policy lesson from the current crisis is that, as a nation, we should prioritise our own firm power energy independence? Does he agree that the best way to achieve this is to reduce our LNG imports from the Gulf and the US by accelerating gas development in the North Sea, and for his department to provide the one piece of paper we are all waiting on—the approval of the Jackdaw gas field to heat 1.6 million British homes this autumn?

[Lord Whitehead (Lab)]

We have been around this path several times before recently. Suddenly introducing lots more gas into the system will make no difference to the resilience of this country against international prices, whereas developing genuinely homegrown power over a period makes all the difference. I should add that homegrown power is not just variable homegrown renewable power; it can be batteries, biomass and so on, which can be firm power in its own right. It is a question of getting the whole picture together to make sure that variable power and firm power on a renewable basis complement each other, so that you have reliable power that is homegrown and secure in the long term.