The proposals for national policy statements on energy - Energy and Climate Change Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 256 - 259)

WEDNESDAY 20 JANUARY 2010 (morning)

MR ROBERT ASQUITH, MS GAYNOR HARTNELL, MS GEMMA GRIMES AND MR PETER MADIGAN

  Q256  Chairman: Good morning. Could I welcome Robert Asquith, Gaynor Hartnell, Peter Madigan and Gemma Grimes. You are very welcome. The NPSs have been published. Do you think they are broadly in a form that the Department could adopt?

  Ms Grimes: Yes. We believe that they are in a good state to be taken forward. They are well developed. We have a couple of points of detail that we will bring out in our formal consultation response to the Department of Energy. We would just like to say that we feel that the need for renewable energy, the detail of the Government's ambitions on renewable energy, might be better expressed.

  Ms Hartnell: Broadly speaking, the Renewable Energy Association shares that view, that they should be adopted, with the caveat that the need is not adequately expressed. It should be far more robustly expressed. We are disappointed that the guidance does not cover a wider range of technologies and we feel in this particular version it should signal that the next iteration will contain a wider range of technologies. There are a few details we will send in to the Committee where we feel it ought to be changed, one of them being that we do not want to see the IPC being able to refuse a consent if it believes that the Environment Agency would have cause to not issue a consent. We do not think that is right.

  Q257  Chairman: The new technologies that you are concerned about, would they be around biofuels?

  Ms Hartnell: The vast bulk of renewable energy projects are going to be coming in at under 50 megawatts on the electricity side, and indeed the renewable energy target we are striving to meet, of 15 per cent of total energy by 2020 is not just about electricity anyway. There is a huge expansion needed in heat, transport fuels and biomethane to grid. Really there is a great need for efficiency across the whole decision-making spectrum for renewables, the Town and Country Planning regime as well. Admittedly, the guidance was not written with that objective in mind, but we would like to have seen it have some bearing on bringing efficiency into the process for the Town and Country Planning regime. We believe it could have been written with that objective in mind and we would like to see it fulfil that role in the future.

  Mr Asquith: One of the areas on which would like to see greater clarity is the relationship between the NPSs and the Town and Country Planning system.

  Q258  Chairman: We are going to come to that, Robert. Have a think about that one and we will be there in a minute. People have mentioned the IPC. Is there sufficient robustness in this statement to allow the IPC to make sensible decisions?

  Mr Madigan: From BWEA's perspective, we would like to see that statement made as strong as possible, and also greater clarity given to the weight which that statement carries. The Government has clearly set out its renewable energy policy and that needs to be communicated to the IPC. From the perspective of offshore wind, 8 January saw the announcement of a third round for offshore wind, and in order to deliver that large capacity of renewable energy we need a clear statement of the Government's ambition in the NPS.

  Ms Hartnell: One cannot over-emphasise that enough. We have an excellent history in this country, unfortunately, of setting renewables targets and then missing them. We have to stop that. We have these mandatory targets now and we need to change things around.

  Q259  Chairman: One of the things people have said to us is that the Overarching Policy Statement does not say anything new really, that it is a bit thin. Is that a fair criticism?

  Ms Grimes: We believe it could state the urgency of climate change and the corresponding need for renewable energy more clearly. In the summary of the Government's Energy and Climate Change Objectives at EN-1 there is no reference to the EU 2020 targets and further down that section no reference to the binding target to cut emissions prior to 2050. It talks about the need to cut emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, but there are further goals along that route to reduce carbon emissions sooner rather than later and that could be brought out much more in the Overarching Energy Statement.

  Chairman: Let us turn to the question of establishment of need.


 
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