Energy Grid Resilience

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

May I thank the hon. Gentleman, because that is a really important question and one that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has been wrestling with? Under all Governments there are individual Departments that take a responsibility and there are Departments that lead on parts of this, and the covid inquiry has raised a number of questions about how some of these resilience questions are answered, so it is a really important point.

My Department has a number of civil servants with expertise in how the energy system works. I pay tribute to the team, who are often there out of hours when storms and other incidents occur. They do a remarkable job. The question about reporting, however, is important. Partly what the Government seek to do with our mission approach and with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s work is to bring together the whole of Government so that everyone who has a responsibility is at the table, feeding in their views. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

There are over 100 battery energy storage system—BESS—facilities operating in the UK, and another one is planned for Hawkchurch in East Devon. Residents there are very worried about fire risk. South Korea is a global leader in BESS, yet the safety issues are plain. There were 38 fire incidents linked to BESS in South Korea up to 2022. Will the Minister commit to reviewing the safety of BESS technology and exploring energy storage solutions that are less subject to fire risk?

[Michael Shanks]

I would first say that fire is a risk in a whole range of scenarios, and I do not think we should jump to the view that because there have been some incidents in one particular piece of infrastructure it is somehow inherent in the infrastructure. It is important to say that batteries will play a critical role in our future energy system, but we obviously take issues of safety very seriously and the hon. Gentleman is right to raise them. The Health and Safety Executive has a role in this and the planning system also has a role in considering some of the fire risks, but we will keep this under review, particularly as the number of battery schemes increases.