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

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what discussions she has had with UK electricity generators on the effect on the electricity market of market imported electricity by interconnectors not subject to the carbon price floor.

The Department has discussed this issue with Energy UK and its members. The Government supports greater interconnection, and Ofgem’s assessment of the impact of importing electricity shows significant benefits to the consumer. The first round of new projects could deliver more than £11.8bn of consumer benefits over 25 years, primarily driven by reductions to the GB electricity wholesale price. Ofgem’s assessment also considered a scenario with no carbon price differential between countries and concluded that this would make no material difference to the business case for these projects.