Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, if the Government will bring forward legislative proposals to (a) update the definition of electricity storage and (b) tackle double charging and other regulatory disparities.

In our Smart Systems and Flexibility Plan, published last year, the Government committed to amending the Electricity Act 1989 to define electricity storage as a distinct subset of generation in primary legislation, when parliamentary time allows. This is an important measure to improve regulatory clarity for electricity storage, and one that we will honour.

The Plan also addressed the issue of storage operators overpaying certain levies and charges. Ofgem has consulted on a new modified generation licence for storage facilities and will respond to this consultation shortly. Storage providers that hold this licence will not pay towards certain levies (the Renewables Obligation, Feed in Tariff, Contracts for Difference and Capacity Market auctions costs). The Government has also clarified that the electricity received and stored by electricity storage facilities may be supplied to them free from the Climate Change Levy where relevant conditions are met.

Ofgem outlined in their Targeted Charging Review Consultation, their view that storage is currently overpaying network charges and stated that the industry is best placed to take forward these changes. Industry has now raised these code modifications, and these are now going through industry governance.