Tom Greatrex

The Department does not hold this information. It is the responsibility of National Grid as System Operator to procure enough reserve for the system overall, and procure any system services which might be required for real-time balancing of the system. Further details on these services can be found at:

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/uk/services/balancing-services/.

Statistics on the number of gas meters and mean annual gas consumption by local authority for each year since 2005 can be found on the DECC website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/gas-sales-and-numbers-of-customers-by-region-and-local-authority.

Statistics on the number of electricity meters and mean annual electricity consumption by local authority for each year since 2005 can be found on the DECC website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/regional-and-local-authority-electricity-consumption-statistics-2005-to-2011.

The 13^th onshore oil and gas licensing round was held in 2008. A review of the time spent considering 13^th Round applications by staff involved in oil gas licensing estimated that the resource cost to the departmental had been £86,180.

Licences are not sold, but there is a fee for applications. Licence application fees for the 13^th Round totalled £60,000.

The Department publishes natural gas consumption statistics on a quarterly basis back to 1998 here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/388417/et4_1.xls

The level of gas consumption by final consumers for 2014 (up to and including provisional data for Q3 2014) is:

The total level of gas consumption by all gas users, including transformation etc. for 2014 (up to and including provisional data for Q3 2014) is:

Provisional data for quarter 4 2014 will be published on Thursday 26 March 2015 at 9.30am.

DECC do not produce monthly estimates of gas and electricity costs. A monthly index of the price of domestic gas and electricity is published by the Office for National Statistics as part of their Consumer Price Index. This series is an index with 2005 prices = 100.

In 2014 DECC estimates that the average price of electricity was 15.57 pence/kWh based on annual consumption of 3,800 kWh/year, with the average price of gas 5.02 pence/kWh based on consumption of 15,000 kWh / year.

The sub-national electricity consumption statistics for 2013 were published on Thursday 18^th December 2014 on the DECC website. A summary report highlighting the key statistics can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sub-national-electricity-and-gas-consumption-summary-report-2013.

Information for the time period requested is not available.

Information for the time period requested is not available.

Information for the time period requested is not available.

The hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West will receive a letter shortly responding to matters raised at the Delegated Legislation Committee session on the 4 December 2014.

Based on data from its network of wind observing stations, the Met Office’s estimate of mean wind speed in each of the constituent parts of the UK in each month of 2014 is shown in the following table:

Several Government policies apply. These include the Climate Change Levy (CCL), Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) and the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC). In addition, this Government has introduced the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) to further encourage business energy efficiency.

The assessment of the applications is ongoing. We hope to be able to announce licence offers in the early part of 2015.

The Department does not hold information on the number of pre-payment meter customers who self-disconnected.

A report by independent energy consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff commissioned by this Department considers the flexibility of coal and gas power technologies:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/technical-assessment-of-the-operation-of-coal-gas-fired-plants.

The table below contains information from the report and shows indicative start up times for coal, existing and modern gas combined cycle gas turbines (CCGT) and large and aero-derivative open cycle gas turbines (OCGT):

*‘Notice to Synch’ is the period of prior notice that a power plant requires to be able to start up the plant to the point of synchronisation.

The current nuclear fleet is not specifically designed for load following and generally plants will operate at their full nominal load. Plants that are offline for maintenance or refuelling will not usually be available to come back on line rapidly as there are a number of safety requirements that must be observed on re-start.

Fossil fuelled fired plant which has prequalified and confirmed its participation in the capacity auction and which is less than 20MW (on a de-rated capacity basis), totals around 1,950MW of de-rated capacity. This is about 3% of the total of 64,969MW of de-rated capacity which will participate in the auction.

The full list of capacity that has pre-qualified can be found on the National Grid website:

https://www.emrdeliverybody.com/pages/Home.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2f_layouts%2f15%2fAuthenticate.aspx%3fSource%3d%252F&Source=%2F

The Department has not made an estimate of the additional cost to suppliers of carrying the liability in the event of one participant defaulting. In the first instance each supplier is required to post credit cover which will be used to cover a missed payment. In the unlikely event a defaulted payment is mutualised across other suppliers, the actual amount would depend on the overall cost of the capacity market payments in that year, and the share of these costs due to be paid by the defaulting supplier. Electricity suppliers have been consulted on these arrangements.

DECC’s publishes estimates for the levelised costs of electricity generation for different technologies. The most recent £/MWh estimates are available in the DECC Electricity Generation Costs (December 2013) report, available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269888/131217_Electricity_Generation_costs_report_December_2013_Final.pdf

Table 1 below is taken from this report, and shows the central levelised cost estimate for representative CCGT and OCGT plants commissioning in 2016. Estimates are not published for sub 20-MW gas plants or oil plants.

Table 1: Levelised cost estimates for CCGT and OCGT technologies, technology specific hurdle rates

* CCGT: Combined Cycle Gas Turbine, OCGT: Open Cycle Gas Turbine

It should be noted that updated cost input assumptions for the range of CCGT and OCGT costs are provided in a Coal and Gas Assumptions report by Parsons Brinkerhoff commissioned by DECC (March 2014). This is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/315717/coal_and_gas_assumptions.PDF

The levelised cost of a particular generation technology is the ratio of the total costs of a generic plant to the total amount of electricity expected to be generated over the plant’s lifetime (per megawatt hour). Levelised cost estimates are highly sensitive to the assumptions used for capital costs, fuel and EU ETS allowance prices, operating costs, load factor, discount rate and other drivers and this means that there is significant uncertainty around these estimates.

A report published by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills contains estimates of the number of jobs within the wider low carbon and environmental goods and services sector from 2007/08 to 2011/12 (figures for earlier years are not available) and can be found at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/low-carbon-and-environmental-goods-and-services-2011-to-2012.

A report published by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills contains estimates of the number of jobs supported across the wider low carbon and environmental goods and services sector. The report, published in July 2013, is available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/low-carbon-and-environmental-goods-and-services-2011-to-2012.

The report does not explicitly refer to the energy efficiency sector, but it does present estimates of employment in the low carbon building technologies and energy management sectors from 2007/08 to 2011/12 (figures for earlier years are not available). The estimates of employment in the two sectors contained within the report include both those employed directly and those employed indirectly in the wider supply chain.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change does not have an overall estimate of jobs in the low carbon and environmental goods and services sector in each year from 2015 to 2030.

However, the Department recently published a comprehensive assessment of investment and employment in UK energy sectors¹, including an estimate that Electricity Market Reform will help support up to 250,000 jobs in low carbon electricity generation by 2020.

[1] DECC (July 2014) Delivering UK Energy Investment: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/331071/DECC_Energy_Investment_Report.pdf

The Department reports the number of (a) Green Deal Assessments, (b) Green Deal Plans in unique properties and (c) measures installed using Green Deal finance by month in the following Official Statistics publication in Tables 2, 3 and 3a respectively:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/green-deal-and-energy-company-obligation-eco-monthly-statistics-october-2014

DECC currently only publish cumulative totals to the end of each quarter for any geographic breakdown tables (i.e. for Scotland, England and Wales). My department reports the number of Green Deal Assessments, and 'live' Green Deal Plans (with measures installed) in unique properties by region, up to 30th June 2014 in Tables 1.6 and 1.7 respectively in the quarterly official statistics publication:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/green-deal-energy-company-obligation-eco-and-insulation-levels-in-great-britain-quarterly-report-to-june-2014

Cumulative totals to previous totals are also available in previous quarterly publications.

The Department is unable to provide a breakdown of measures installed under the Energy Companies Obligation by measure type by country by month. This would require additional resource to extract this data (beyond the time/cost limit for named day PQs) as this level of information is not currently published by DECC. DECC currently only publish cumulative totals to the end of each quarter for any geographic breakdown tables. Attached Table 1 shows the provisional number of ECO measures by ECO obligation by country by quarter, up to 30^th June 2014.

The provisional number of ECO measures by (b) obligation, in (i) Scotland, (ii) England and (iii) Wales is published in Table 1.11 of the quarterly official statistics:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/green-deal-energy-company-obligation-eco-and-insulation-levels-in-great-britain-quarterly-report-to-june-2014

Senior Officials from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Yorkshire Humber North East Office have been assigned to assist UK Coal following their interest in applying for government funding to extend the operation of the two remaining deep mines until the end of 2018. These officials met with UK Coal on 10 October and are now working with them to help prepare a case for Government support. The company fully understands that this is the first phase of a complex and challenging process before the government submits a state aid case to the European Commission.

The 14^th Onshore Oil and Gas Licensing Round closed for applications on the 28^th October 2014, and we have received 95 applications covering in total 295 blocks. (A block for these purposes is a 10x10 km area.) Some blocks were applied for by more than one applicant.

The assessment of the applications received is in hand, but it is too early to say how soon the necessary work can be completed. We hope to be able to announce licence offers in the early part of 2015.

The larger energy suppliers have provided yearly smart and advanced meter installation forecasts to DECC, which were published in the ‘Second Annual Report on the Roll-out of Smart Meters’ in December 2013:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/second-annual-progress-report-on-the-roll-out-of-smart-meters

These figures will be updated in the next annual report based on the most recent projections by suppliers. It should be noted that these figures do not include any of the smaller suppliers’ estimates, nor take into account any growth in customer numbers.

DECC does not project bill impacts on a quarter by quarter basis and DECC’s latest prices and bills report from March 2013 contained projected bill impacts from smart metering for 2013, 2020 and 2030:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/172923/130326_-_Price_and_Bill_Impacts_Report_Final.pdf .

The smart meter Impact Assessment published in January 2014, estimates that even at their peak in 2015 the costs to the average consumer will be £6, or less than 0.5% of the average bill:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/smart-meter-roll-out-for-the-domestic-and-small-and-medium-non-domestic-sectors-gb-impact-assessment

Taking into account all costs and savings, by 2017 the average consumer will start saving money, leading to an annual net saving of £26 in 2020, increasing to £43 a year in 2030 in comparison to a situation without smart meters.

The Hinkley Point C strike price in 2012 prices is £89.50/MWh indexed to the Consumer Price Index. This price benefits from upfront reduction of £3/MWh built in on assumption that EdF will be able to share first of a kind costs of EPR reactors across Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C sites. If the final investment decision is not taken on Sizewell C, the Strike Price for Hinkley Point C will be £92.50/MWh in 2012 prices. The Department has not restated the strike price in October 2014 prices.

We have not made an estimate of the overall cost to the consumer in 2014 prices as the CPI index for the full year is not yet available.

We have not made such a calculation.

The Department does not make its own estimates of wholesale prices for electricity. We typically source market data from sources such as from Marex Spectron.

No assessment to date has been made on the total cost to DECC of administering the 14^th licensing round. The consideration of applications made in the licensing round is yet to take place and the number of applications relevant staff will need to consider will not be known until the passing of the application deadline on the 28th October 2014.

Up to four members of staff have had substantial involvement in preparations for the round to date, and up to six more may be involved in the assessment of applications once received and in the issue of licences in accordance with Ministers’ decisions. In addition, the Department is conducting environmental assessments related to the round, with assistance from external consultants.

The projected allocation from the levy control framework for feed in tariffs, the renewables obligation and projects agreed under the final investment decision-enabling process in financial years from 2015/16 to 2020/21 is expected to be published in an annex (‘DECC’s Consumer Funded Policies – a report to Parliament’) to the Annual Energy Statement.

Publication of the Annual Energy Statement is expected in Autumn 2014.

Ofgem regulates network expenditure through the price control processes, which set out how much the network companies can spend and what can be passed through to consumers over an eight-year period. Network costs are charged to network users on a cost reflective basis to ensure that the networks are built, maintained and operated in an economically efficient way.

DECC publishes average bill impacts. In March 2013, the Government published estimates of the impact of energy and climate change policies on energy prices and bills for 2013, 2020 and 2030:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/172923/130326_-_Price_and_Bill_Impacts_Report_Final.pdf.

If a final contract is signed, it is expected that the investors in Hinkley Point C would, subject to conditions, receive compensation in the event of a political shut down of the plant other than for reasons including health, nuclear safety, security, environmental reasons, nuclear transport or nuclear safeguards. These arrangements would be supported by an agreement between my rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Hinkley Point C investors.

The exact details of the compensation mechanisms are to be agreed between the Government and EDF, but the principle would be that investors are compensated for their losses directly as a result of the decision to shut them down.

There is no cap in the contract for difference for Hinkley Point C on the operator’s liability for decommissioning costs.

The Government’s policy is that operators of new nuclear power stations must have arrangements in place to meet the full costs of decommissioning and their full share of waste management and disposal costs. This policy is being implemented through a framework created by the Energy Act 2008. The Energy Act requires operators of new nuclear power stations to have a Funded Decommissioning Programme approved by the Secretary of State in place before construction of a new nuclear power station begins and to comply with this programme thereafter.

DECC’s most recently published figures for current and future levelised costs are available in the DECC Electricity Generation Costs (December 2013) report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269888/131217_Electricity_Generation_costs_report_December_2013_Final.pdf

Table 1 below is taken from this report, and shows a range of levelised cost estimates for nuclear projects commissioning in 2020, 2025 and 2030, evaluated using a technology specific hurdle rate of 9.5% (pre-tax real). Estimates are not available for projects commissioning in 2035.

Table 1: Levelised cost estimates for nuclear projects, technology specific hurdle rate, sensitivities around high/low capital costs

Levelised cost estimates for different types of electricity generation are highly sensitive to the assumptions used for capital costs, fuel and EU ETS allowance prices, operating costs, load factor, discount rate and other drivers and this means that there is significant uncertainty around these estimates.

The Department does not collect or publish statistics on the flow of gas between Scotland and England and vice-versa.

Gas consumption estimates for Great Britain are based on annualised meter consumption readings supplied to DECC by energy companies. Monthly estimates are not available.

Annual data is also available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sub-national-gas-consumption-data.

The Department publishes monthly statistics back to January 2000 on gas imports to the UK within Energy Trends table 4.4. The table includes the quantity of gas imported to the UK through the Bacton-Zeebrugge Interconnector and the Vesterled pipeline to St Fergus Frigg sub terminal. The latest version of Energy Trends table 4.4 can be accessed here:

http://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/323246/et4_4.xls

My rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s meetings with external organisations from July 2012 to December 2013 have been published and can be found on the www.gov.uk website at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications?departments%5B%5D=department-of-energy-climate-change&publication_type=transparency-data

Meetings prior to July 2012 are now available on the National Archives website at the following link:

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130102164008/http:/www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/accesstoinform/registers/ministermtgs/ministermtgs.aspx

Meetings from January 2014 to date are currently being collated and checked prior to publication. Please be assured that the Department is committed to publishing this information.

Total gas storage capacity in England is 4.63bcm. This includes the 3.3bcm Rough facility located in the Southern North Sea. In addition, there are two projects currently under construction in England which will bring full gas storage capacity to 5.13bcm when completed.

There are no gas storage facilities currently located in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland.

Of the existing gas storage capacity, 3.3bcm (the Rough facility) is long range and 1.33bcm is short range. The two projects currently under construction, totalling 0.5bcm, are both short range facilities.