Gas-fired Power Stations
Lord Redesdale Excerpts(8 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Lord Callanan (Con)
My Lords, the essential misunderstanding of the energy system from the noble Baroness continues apace. The answer to the noble Baroness’s question is that we need both. We need long-duration energy storage, long-term battery storage, pumped storage and long-term hydrogen energy storage—all of which we are progressing. We have the most ambitious plans in Europe in all those areas. However, all independent forecasters who have looked at this, including the Climate Change Committee, agree that, in addition to that, we may need gas-fired generation, of relatively short duration and maybe only 1% or 2%—obviously, the Greens would prefer the lights to go out in their yurts before the rest of us progress in an advanced industrial society. This is essential contingency planning, and we make no excuses whatever for saying that the energy security of the UK is our priority. We can do that in a net-zero scenario, and we will progress that.
Lord Redesdale (LD)
My Lords, I have a question about baseload capacity. Under the present Government, the number of larger generators on the grid has fallen quite considerably. Due to that, we will obviously need gas-fired power stations in the short term. However, there is a problem there, because the Minister is talking about short-term capacity. Can he say whether those investing in gas power stations would see a return on investment? The reason why gas-fired power stations have failed to be built over the last 10 years is that, because of the CfD, it has been almost impossible to make the financial case for building those power stations.
Lord Callanan (Con)
The noble Lord is right in that the number of larger generators on the system is falling, with the elimination later this year of coal generation —we will have phased it out completely. He is right, again, that the gas generators that we are talking about—which will be some refurbished existing plants, but also a few new ones—will be able to take part in the capacity market auctions. These are essentially auctions for back-up capacity that may be required in certain scenarios.