UK Parliament told - More Electricity interconnection will have to be built

The Lords Science and Technology Committee turned its attention to the impact of climate change on long-term electricity supply today. The Committee’s inquiry into electricity resilience continued to take evidence from experts on issues such as whether climate change could affect resilience, how decarbonisation could impact on long-term electricity supply, and how the UK can learn from other countries in the EU and beyond. The questions considered are:-

·        How do you expect climate change to impact on the resilience of the electricity system?

·        Can the electricity system deal with the impacts of climate change?

·        How will the decarbonisation of the electricity system affect attempts to ensure resilience?

·        How does electricity resilience in the UK compare to other countries in the EU and to North America?

·        What lessons can the UK learn?

·        How compatible are EU-wide and Member State measures to secure resilience?

Giving evidence were Matthew Bell, CEO, Committee on Climate Change; Dr David Clarke, CEO, Energy Technologies Institute (ETI); Professor Kevin Anderson, representing the Resilient Electricity Networks for Great Britain (RESNET) project, University of Manchester, Prof Catherine Mitchell, Exeter University; Dr Konstantin Staschus, Secretary-General, European Network of Transmission System Operators.

The Lords committee comprised of

The Lords committee are Earl of Selborne (Chairman), Lord Broers (Co-opted), Lord Dixon-Smith, Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, Baroness Hilton of Eggardon, Baroness Manningham-Buller, Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan, Lord Patel Crossbench, Lord Peston, Lord Rees of Ludlow, Viscount Ridley, Baroness Sharp of Guildford, Lord Wade of Chorlton, Lord Willis of Knaresborough, Lord Winston Labour.

At times a heated taking of evidence due to for example, challenges over the reality of Climate Change from Climate Change sceptic Lord Wade of Chorlton whereby he indicated a “lets wait and see” policy and attacked the reliability of Climate change evidence from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.  “The point is that temperature has not gone up” and went on to add “I am inclined to believe with Mr Farage’s campaign and have a plan to deal with them (future problems) if the problem arises”

A further challenge was by Lord Broers over the accuracy Committee of Climate Changes literature.  A robust and somewhat irritated rebuttal by  Professor Kevin Anderson (RESNET)ensued who stated “I am not interested in your or any one elses “belief” … by and large I will take the views of the experts …. You may believe they (the climate scientists) are wrong, I will go with the scientists and the experts conclusions rather than the beliefs of yourself or indeed other non-experts in that area.”  

Dr Konstantin Staschus, Secretary-General, European Network of Transmission System Operators was concerned at the lack of progress made by the UK in terms of interconnecting its electricity grid to Europe “A strong grid is one of the best ways to keep resilience up as you are investing in more and more renewable energy and to keep the overall cost of the electricity system affordable for consumers.  If you look at the increasing importance of Interconnectors for the future as more and more renewable energy comes into the system here (UK) and also elsewhere in Europe more interconnection will have to be built in order to keep the transition towards low carbon resources affordable and as resilient as possible.”

Prof Catherine Mitchell, Exeter University when discussing the need for a better demand side response system for electricity in the UK commented “the system we have in place is some sort of market wide system (Electricity Market Reform and CFD) is very inflexible and the opposite to what you want as a demand side system”.