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

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the UK’s current dependency on energy supplied by interconnectors.

The latest figures on electricity supplied by interconnectors are available in the 2019 ‘Energy Trends: Electricity’, published by BEIS. In Q1 2019, net imports of electricity via interconnectors were 6.0 TWh for the UK. This is equivalent to 6.4% of total demand over the period. In Great Britain, as part of the Capacity Market process, National Grid Electricity System Operator assesses how much capacity will be needed in the years ahead factoring in the risks of particular technologies not delivering. This annual process includes an assessment of how interconnectors should be derated to reflect the likely reliability of electricity flow during times of stress. We then secure all the capacity needed through the Capacity Market, ensuring we meet our reliability standard.

In Northern Ireland, the Single Electricity Market operates as a single, shared wholesale electricity market between Ireland and Northern Ireland, with electricity flows between Ireland and Northern Ireland treated as internal flows. The Single Electricity Market’s capacity remuneration mechanism is working well to ensure security of supply of electricity in Northern Ireland.