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

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of the effectiveness of using energy storage to ensure that intermittent renewable sources of energy can be part of the UK's energy mix.

Renewable energy technologies have successfully been part of the UK energy mix for many years.

Storage could help maximise the benefits and minimise the costs of low carbon energy. It is one of a number of flexible solutions which could be used, for example, demand-side response, interconnection with other countries and dynamic use of networks.

We are investigating the potential barriers to deployment of these technologies, including energy storage, and possible mitigating actions, focussing in the first instance on removing regulatory and policy barriers. We will be publishing a call for evidence on a smart systems route map, including storage, shortly.