Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Andrea Leadsom(8 years, 5 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
My hon. Friend is exactly right. A good example of my own efforts to improve the use of UK steel has been to urge the Offshore Wind Industry Council to do more to promote UK content. The UK is one of the biggest deployers of offshore wind to date and we can certainly hope that, once we start building our export markets, British steel will form a part of those exports.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The Minister will be aware that the two Liberty steel plants, including Clydebridge in my constituency, will be heavily involved in the supply of turbine casings for tidal lagoon projects and tubular steel structures for offshore wind turbines. The renewables industry can provide a huge market for steel produced in Britain, which represents a huge opportunity for British businesses. Will the Minister commit to revisiting the Government’s approach to the subsidy of such renewables?
Andrea Leadsom
On the subsidies for renewables, we have made it clear that we must balance the need to keep costs down for consumers with the need of new technologies to be subsidised in order to deploy and keep their costs down. On offshore wind, we have made it clear that we see huge potential for the cost trajectory to go down. The offshore wind industry already has a target of 50% UK content, and I am certainly encouraging it to be more ambitious. That would absolutely include the use of British steel.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Margaret Ferrier and Andrea Leadsom(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrea Leadsom
As I say, we will shortly issue a call for evidence on energy storage at grid level—at battery generation level—to try to ensure that we give as much scope and capacity to energy storage in the system. At domestic level, people are starting to look at those systems and, as part of the improvement of house-building performance, builders are required to look at other opportunities such as battery storage, solar panels and the like. There will be more work on that, but, as the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, it is still at a fairly early stage as things stand.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)
The energy storage industry sees 2016 as a breakthrough year, with many emerging technologies coming into the mainstream. Will the Minister concede that current subsidy cuts to renewables are lacking the foresight needed if we are to promote a genuinely green future in this truly innovative industry?
Andrea Leadsom
I certainly would not. Since 2010, £52 billion has been invested in renewables. The pipeline is still enormous. There are lots of new projects that will be coming to the fore over the next five to 10 years. It is simply not true to say that support for renewables is in any sense dropping off a cliff. The advantage of energy storage will be to deal with the intermittency of renewables, so it should be a win-win for the UK.