Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate he has made of the average cost of connecting community hydro-electric schemes to the National Grid in the last five years.

When setting the Feed-in Tariff for hydro schemes of any size in 2012, our economists took into account both capital and operating costs, including the costs of grid connection. Our capex costs were all estimated using the following report:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/42912/5900-update-of-nonpv-data-for-feed-in-tariff-.pdf/.

However, each scheme is different and cost can vary greatly, including for grid connection, and we do not have specific data for community schemes.