Philip Hollobone
Main Page: Philip Hollobone (Conservative - Kettering)
Charles Hendry
I had an initial discussion with the First Minister last week, and we are determined to work closely through the respect agenda to ensure that the taking forward of devolved issues is fully within the Scottish Government’s remit. We want clean coal to play an active part in our energy policy, but it must be genuinely clean coal.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
11. If he will bring forward proposals to increase the surplus of projected electricity generation over demand after 2015.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Chris Huhne)
It will be important to ensure that the UK has secure electricity supplies and an adequate capacity margin over the course of this decade and into the 2020s. Our programme for government is clear: we will reform energy markets to deliver an appropriate security of supply mechanism. The lights will stay on.
Mr Hollobone
Will the Secretary of State be kind enough to tell the House, how close we are likely to come, on current projections, to having major blackouts throughout the country in the second half of the decade?
Chris Huhne
We will come forward with a lot more detail on that in the annual energy statement, which the hon. Gentleman will be able to examine for himself, but I assure him, as I said, that the lights will stay on. Inevitably, as new generating capacity comes on stream we will see the margin increase, and as the economy recovers we can expect that margin to shrink. However, he should also bear in mind what is going on with energy saving and, particularly, the development of smart meters and smart grids, whereby in the long run there will be a possibility of, for example, turning off freezers during power peaks, to reduce the need for electricity generation.