Energy Grid Resilience

Markus Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important question. I was here after Storm Éowyn, when we discussed that a number of people who no longer had a copper wire line were not able to contact emergency services. It was a really important point.

There is resilience built into the mobile phone network to ensure that masts should be able to operate in circumstances when even the power to them is cut off. It is a question for Ofcom to look at and I have spoken to my colleagues in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to make sure that that is happening. There is more that we can do. We are engaging with the Energy Networks Association, which works with distribution network operators, to make sure that all the resilience plans join up and that the practical impact that the hon. Lady rightly raises is taken into account. I will write to her with updates.

[Markus Campbell-Savours (Penrith and Solway) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) has already highlighted, synthetic inertia technologies are used to simulate the benefits that traditional turbine technologies provided to an electricity grid now increasingly supplied by renewables. Is the Minister satisfied that we have sufficiently invested in those technologies to provide resilience across the grid? Is there an argument that surge protection devices, which wiring regulations mandate for nearly all new domestic and commercial installations, should be installed in all homes and businesses?

[Michael Shanks]

I will take that interesting point on surge protection away and speak to my colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

On the wider point around inertia, as the system changes, there is a constant balancing job for the National Energy System Operator to make sure that we design a system that is resilient. We are deploying technologies to ensure that the system is resilient and there is sufficient inertia by procuring the alternative technologies that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) referenced, but we will keep it under constant review.