Infrastructure Planning (Electricity Storage Facilities) Order 2020

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Tuesday 27th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

My Lords, I come to this debate not to oppose the SI in any way, but because I have a long-standing interest in renewable energy and storage. For nearly two decades, I was vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group. I have had a solar roof on a property of mine in Leicestershire for nearly 20 years, which was actually supported by the Labour Government, who were trying to increase usage of solar roofs. So I come to this with some knowledge of renewable energy and depressingly little knowledge of storing electricity. That has been the big problem—how to store renewable energy, which can generate when the wind is blowing hard, but storing it has been much more expensive.

I welcome this SI because it removes obstacles to storing electricity that might otherwise remain. The Dinorwig power station near Llanberis in Snowdonia opened 36 years ago and is the biggest pumped hydro in England and Wales. I have visited it in the past; it takes electricity that might be surplus to requirements—for example, in the middle of the night when there is no peak demand—and uses it through hydro a peak demand. That is one way of storing it. I once visited a similar place not far from me in Leicestershire, a small-scale plant owned by a gentleman who uses wind power from a wind generator to pump water uphill into a pond; he then lets it go when he needs lots of electricity at home. That is on an entirely different scale, but is very valuable. Of course, we have all put electricity into heat sumps; you heat the water up, then you have electricity within the water—or hot water, at least.

It always worries me that government policy can be a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Indeed, sometimes it changes rather quickly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, just said. But this is a good thing. Can the Minister tell me how battery development is proceeding? I know that it is proceeding. If she does not have the details immediately to hand, perhaps she might write to me with them.