Oral Answers to Questions

Zöe Franklin Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Michael Shanks]

Batteries will play an important part in the short-duration storage required for the energy system we are building for the future. It is a question of balance. Communities will be engaged in the consultation process, and I will be convening a roundtable with providers of battery technology and other short-duration storage in the next few months to learn both from projects that have worked well and from projects on which we could do better in future. I will happily share any information from that with my hon. Friend.

[Zöe Franklin (Guildford) (LD)]

T8. Will the Secretary of State commit to ensuring that large energy suppliers work with community energy organisations to generate and sell electricity locally at discounted rates, and provide fair community benefits, as proposed by the Liberal Democrats?

[Ed Miliband]

The hon. Lady raises the important issue that, as a country, we are massively underpowered on community energy. As part of the GB Energy local power plan we will be trying to change that, learning from countries such as Germany and Denmark, which do much better than us. We will certainly look at the issues she raises.