Enabling Community Energy

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Ben Lake), my near neighbour in Wales and a doughty champion of community energy.

My own interest in community energy originates from growing up at Lake Vyrnwy, where my father ran a hotel, a few miles south of my constituency of Clwyd South, where the mighty Vyrnwy masonry dam, the largest in Europe when it was completed in 1890, contains a hydroelectric unit that used to supply the surrounding valley with electricity until it moved on to the mains in 1960. I strongly believe that we need to return to that model of community energy. Therefore, in Clwyd South, I have been championing the hydroelectric potential of the River Dee in Llangollen with town councillor Stuart Davies. I warmly welcome the recent decision by members of the town council to set up a task and finish group to investigate the feasibility of using the site of decommissioned hydro-units in the town.

Further up the River Dee in my constituency, in Corwen, is the perfect example of a community energy project—the Corwen community hydro scheme. People came together as a community to build a 55 kW high head hydro scheme in the town. It is 100% owned and run by the community, which raised more than £300,000 for the construction with a share offer five years ago, of which 50% was bought by people in and around Corwen. The success of that first project has led to a second larger project in Bonwm, near Corwen, where work is expected to start this autumn on building a 100 kW hydro scheme, which will be completed ahead of the end of the feed-in tariffs in July 2022.

The Corwen projects have benefited significantly from the support of the local landowner, Lord Newborough, whose Rhug Estate has put sustainability firmly at the heart of its business mission, particularly through its own renewable heat and power generation. That has led to the welcome announcement this week that Rhug has won a net zero award from the North Wales Mersey Dee Business Council.

The Local Electricity Bill lies at the heart of this debate, and I, like many other Members, have put its key points to the UK Government. I know that the Minister and the other BEIS Ministers are keen to take as constructive an approach as possible on what I appreciate is a highly complex issue. While we debate these matters, the Corwen community hydro scheme is actually putting into practice the aims set by the Local Electricity Bill—namely by creating a market between the local generators and the local householders directly. It is doing that by using its electricity to benefit homes in Corwen via the model developed and run by Energy Local, the community interest company that is transforming the electricity market for communities with small-scale renewable generators, which was referenced in the Government’s energy White Paper. The Energy Local model enables consumers to benefit from cheaper electricity if they use power when Corwen’s hyro is generating. The participants pay only 7.5p per kWh, compared with the average market price of 11p to 15p. Of course, that is facilitated by the arrival of smart meters and Energy Local clubs.

I strongly support community energy schemes, as proposed by the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) and the hon. Member for Ceredigion. I am proud that Corwen is the second Energy Local scheme in the UK. The first was also in Wales—in Bethesda, in north Wales. I wish every success to similar schemes that are in the pipeline in England and elsewhere in the UK.