Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of supporting the introduction of an Innovation Power Purchase Agreement to allow early stage technologies reach commercial readiness.
BEIS officials continue to engage with wave and tidal stream developers to understand their cost-reduction trajectories, where those savings are likely to be found and, importantly in light of declining costs for other renewables, whether there may be a rationale for funding arrangements outside of the CFD.
The Marine Energy Council is also looking at alternative funding models for early tidal array deployment outside the Levy Control Framework, which they refer to as the Innovation Power Purchase Agreement (IPPA). However, given that the IPPA is based on a tax measure which is the responsibility of HMT, it would be for Treasury ministers to decide on the desirability of such an instrument.
BEIS also supports the progress of early-stage technologies to commercial readiness through the £505 million Energy Innovation Programme. The Programme includes: