Electricity Supply

Lord Ravensdale Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that EDF is estimating a 20% reduction in cost for using the same technology that it has been using at Hinkley Point C, which is why we are proceeding with Sizewell C. We need a mix of all these technologies. He is right to point out the potential of advanced nuclear technologies: that is why we are investing in them. The Rolls-Royce SMR is likely to be operational by 2032. Investment in AMR technology, which has the potential to help us in our hydrogen ambitions, will follow shortly thereafter.

[Lord Ravensdale (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I declare my interests, as shown in the register. We are losing a large amount of low-carbon firm power capacity by the end of this decade. Much of the debate on future generation has been based on comparison of levelised costs of electricity metrics between technologies. Does the Minister agree that this does not recognise the system costs of intermittent generators, and that an alternative model should be developed which accounts for this and positively incentivises renewable generators, such as equivalent firm power auctions?

[Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an interesting point. He is right that we should take all costs of the energy system into account when making choices about our generation mix. The latest departmental modelling does this. It is not as simple as calculating firm power equivalence. A system’s cost depends on what is available across the sector, rather than focusing on each type of generation separately.