Energy Bill [HL]

Lord Oates Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

Turning to my amendment, if we are to use this highly questionable route forward for heating, let us ensure that we introduce very stringent standards. I have been speaking to the Green Hydrogen Organisation, which is a new trade association in Europe concerned with representing green hydrogen companies. It says that the best standard is 1 kilogram of CO₂ equivalent for 1 kilogram of hydrogen, and that is what we should be adopting. We should seek to be as ambitious as possible, driving investment into only the cleanest forms and not being distracted by what would be a very expensive and inefficient, very costly and potentially dangerous solution which is just not needed at this time.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the UK Hydrogen Policy Commission. I do not disagree with any of the amendments, and having a stringent green hydrogen standard is important. However, it is also important to stress that hydrogen is for use not only in home heating—I share some of the noble Baroness’s scepticism about that—and there are very significant uses of hydrogen at present in the chemical industry and as a feedstock in fertilisers. They must clearly be the priority, and we certainly need green hydrogen for that, which is a lot of green hydrogen. Although I absolutely share the ambition on tight standards for green hydrogen, we will definitely need it there, and in some of those hard-to-decarbonise areas such as steel production and the building industry. We should absolutely use it for purposes where electricity is not an easy solution, but let us not talk it down or talk about it as if it is a solution only to home heating, where I agree it probably is not practical.

[Baroness Blake of Leeds (Lab)]

Just to add to that list of uses, I am interested in the development of the hydrogen village, as outlined in the Bill, which is a really interesting example. There are also other uses in transport, for example, which are very well advanced, and we very much look forward to the outcome of those debates.

I do not want to prolong the debate, but the obvious question to me is that a standard has been established and had extensive public consultation and multiple engagement sessions with experts by stakeholder groups, as I understand it. I just wonder why we would want to undermine all that work and complicate the situation by suggesting that the Secretary of State could override the standard. Perhaps the Minister could, in his summing up, give us a very clear explanation of how any changes to the standard and protection might be achieved, to ensure that stakeholders and the public are kept informed, as this is, as we have heard, an area of both enthusiastic response and concern.

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Moved by

[Lord Oates]

50: After Clause 64, insert the following new Clause—
“Designation of a long duration energy storage counterparty(1) The Secretary of State may by notice given to a person designate the person to be a counterparty for long duration energy storage revenue support contracts.(2) A “long duration energy storage revenue support contract” is a contract in relation to which both the following paragraphs apply—(a) the contract is between a long duration energy storage counterparty and the holder of a licence under section 7;(b) the contract was entered into by a long duration energy storage counterparty in pursuance of a direction given to it under section 60(1).(3) A person designated under subsection (1) is referred to in this Chapter as a “long duration energy storage counterparty”.(4) A designation may be made only with the consent of the person designated (except where that person is the Secretary of State).(5) The Secretary of State may exercise the power to designate so that more than one designation has effect under subsection (1), but only if the Secretary of State considers it necessary for the purposes of ensuring that—(a) liabilities under a long duration energy storage revenue support contract are met,(b) arrangements entered into for purposes connected to a long duration energy storage revenue support contract continue to operate, or(c) directions given to a long duration energy storage counterparty continue to have effect.(6) As soon as reasonably practicable after a designation ceases to have effect, the Secretary of State must make one or more transfer schemes under section 79 to ensure the transfer of all rights and liabilities under any transport and storage revenue support contract to which the person who has ceased to be a transport and storage counterparty was a party.”

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 50 and 51. These are probing amendments to press the Government on their position on revenue support models for long-duration energy storage and the degree to which they recognise the urgency of determining this.

In Committee on Monday, the noble Lords, Lord Moylan and Lord Howell of Guildford, raised this issue of energy storage. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Howell, spoke of the Dinorwig pumped-storage plant in Wales, which I believe he opened—or at least he opened its increased capacity—when he was the relevant Minister. He made the point, quite rightly, that it not only provides support when the system needs it—rapidly bringing power on—but even when it is not operating it is saving money because it reduces the margin that is required to be kept on hand to be on call.

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[Lord Callanan (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her suggestion. The Treasury is not normally shy in coming forward with proposals for extra taxes if it thinks it can get away with it. Of course, we have already imposed the excess profits levy on a number of producers in the UK; indeed, those producers already pay increased rates of corporation tax. We must be careful that we do not disincentivise investment. Putting aside the wider politics of it, which we all understand, I am sure that everybody is aware that we need tens of billions of pounds of investment into existing oil and gas facilities. I welcome the support of the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for the continued production of UK gas; it is an important transition fuel and I hope he will manage to convince some of his Liberal Democrat colleagues to support us in this. We do need gas in the short term, but many of those same companies are investing many billions of pounds also in offshore wind and other renewable energy infrastructure, so we want to be careful not to disincentive them too much from that. I am sure the Treasury will want to take into account all these helpful considerations as to how it can increase its tax base.

In conclusion, I am grateful to noble Lords for their amendments on these topics. I hope I have been able to provide at least some reassurance to some people on their amendments and that they will therefore feel able not to press them.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

I thank the Minister for his reply. On the tax treatment of batteries for solar power, I heard the Prime Minister at Prime Minister’s Questions today say on a number of occasions, “What I am about is cutting tax”, so perhaps he could suggest to her that this is one of the first tax cuts she could make.

On long-duration storage, the Minister made the point that there is a wide range of technologies, some of which are innovative, and the Government need to consider them. As I said in moving my amendment, that is acknowledged, but there are some that are not innovative: they are proven and effective and we need to get on with them. I hope the Minister can find a way of addressing this, because we will come back to it. The Government need to find a way, whether it is through specific pathfinder pilots or whatever it is, to get on with some of the things that need to happen now. The Minister said that it was premature at this stage to come forward with this stuff. If he talked to the project managers of Coire Glas, I think they would tell him it is not premature at all; in fact, it is desperately needed. They have a project ready to go, but they have no revenue model. We know we need it, the Government acknowledge in their consultation on long-duration storage that we need to massively ramp this up, so we really need to get on with it. I am afraid the Minister did not really address that.

I have one final question for the Minister. He said we will have the solution “by 2024”. Can he confirm that that means we will have the revenue models by 1 January 2024? There is a big difference between “by 2024” and during 2024. The industry is very worried that, when it has pressed the department on this, it has been given no assurance that it actually means “by 2024” and that it could be by the end of 2024. Can the Minister clarify that, in writing perhaps, to me and other Members of the Committee? These are critical things. We just have to get on with doing the things that we know how to do. There are lots of things that we do not know how to do. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 50 withdrawn.