Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-37)
Mr Tim Abraham, Mr Chris Barton and Mr Duarte Figueira
17 MARCH 2008
Q20 Chairman: Have any of these studies
been published or is this advice directly to the Secretary of
State?
Mr Figueira: It is advice to the Secretary
of State which is normally in the form of quarterly meetings,
and I should say that the Renewables Advisory Board has a series
of sub-groups which are chaired by members of the Renewables Advisory
Board but which other stakeholders, like interested trade associations
and others, may attend. For example, they have a sub-group to
advise on grid issues, and advisory groups on different types
of renewable technologies. They generally make a presentation
to the Secretary of State every quarter—the Minister in
the past—and they raise issues from an industrial perspective
which they think would be useful advice to him.
Q21 Chairman: My question was, is
the advice published?
Mr Figueira: The advice is published,
yes. The reports of the RAB groups are published.
Chairman: I am going to ask the Clerk to pursue this
matter to see whether the published work can be circulated to
the Committee and to the Special Adviser.
Q22 Lord Bradshaw: Good afternoon.
Ofgem is in the process of reviewing its rules for gas and electricity
grid regulation, with a view to facilitating your investment.
In part it appears this is in order to facilitate the growth of
renewables. However, it does not expect to make regulatory changes
until 2015. Is the Government assessing whether earlier changes
are needed? The timescales which are set here about making regulatory
changes will be in 2015. What you just said was about the Renewables
Advisory Board having met since 2001, which is seven years ago,
and you are talking about another seven years here, yet you are
talking about reaching a target by 2020. It seems to me that what
I have called the bureaucratic process of agreeing all this is
quite out of kilter with actually reaching a target. I would like
some reassurance that somebody is putting some energy behind bringing
these timescales forward, because otherwise there is no hope of
reaching the target.
Mr Barton: First of all, just to acknowledge,
yes, that the time pressure is clearly very significant and, as
we were saying earlier on, potentially it is a tenfold increase
in little more than ten years, which is a very challenging one.
I would just make a couple of comments, if I may. One is that
although, clearly, we need to accelerate much faster, good progress
has been made over the last few years. You mentioned since 2001;
in 2001 I believe renewable electricity was about 1.5% of the
total generation; today it is over 4.5%, so we have seen over
a tripling in that time and, even on current measures, we expect
another tripling by 2015. So good progress is being made but we
are absolutely clear, and indeed, that is why this whole Renewable
Energy Strategy project is being set up. Within BERR we have reorganised
so that all renewables is brought within one directorate. John
Hutton, our Secretary of State, has taken over the chairmanship
of the Renewables Advisory Board and we have this cross-Whitehall
working to ensure that we do deliver on what we recognise is an
extremely challenging timetable. I cannot hide that the challenge
is there but we are very much trying to respond to it.
Q23 Lord Bradshaw: Do you include
the possibility of some new nuclear generation within the renewables
target?
Mr Barton: We are not envisaging that
nuclear will be included within the renewables target, no. In
a way that it is defined within the draft Directive, nuclear would
not count towards the target.
Lord Bradshaw: Even though it would actually save
CO2. It does seem a little strange to me.
Q24 Lord Bradshaw: If major changes
are to be made to the way renewables are generated, is it not
the case that it cannot be left simply to financial instruments?
Does it need more regulatory intervention?
Mr Figueira: Perhaps I should just clarify
that the Ofgem regulatory review is due to be completed in 2010
and therefore it will have an impact on the transmission price
control which will be brought in in 2012. It is meant to be a
far-ranging review of a complex topic, particularly in terms of
price control, but renewables is only part of the issue it is
considering. It is considering price control across the piece.
What we are doing is assessing what we need to achieve the target
in terms of the Renewable Energy Strategy and, while we work closely
with Ofgem in a number of areas, the review they are carrying
out is not strictly linked to the Renewable Energy Strategy, which
Chris leads on. That is a separate piece of work. But it will
have an impact in terms of transmission price control, for example.
Q25 Lord Walpole: To what extent
does grid access remain a significant barrier to increased consumption
of renewable energies? Is it consistently a problem across all
Member States? Previous EU legislation set out various grid requirements
to promote renewable energy. Has this been consistently implemented
across the EU27, or have some Member States be more successful
than others? In parts of Britain, renewables developers can face
long delays in securing grid access. How significant are these
delays in the light of the new targets? What steps is BERR taking
to address such delays?
Mr Figueira: Perhaps I can just say a
few words about the way in which the grid access regime is run,
to create the right back-cloth. The current grid access regime
in Great Britain, it has to be said, has been historically quite
successful, in that it has led to the connection of around 25
GW of electricity in the last 15 or so years and, obviously, while
it has been operating, we have seen significant growth in renewable
generation as a result of the incentives provided by the Renewables
Obligation, and that level of renewables introduction is speeding
up. The first gigawatt of wind power took something of the order
of 14 years to become operational, which is obviously not the
sort of timescale we are talking about now, but the second gigawatt
has only taken 20 months, and we have seen a speeding up the process.
Having said all that, we do consider that grid access is a barrier
to the deployment of renewable energy and renewable generation
of electricity, and it is true to say that in some congested parts
of the grid we are seeing offers of connection from the National
Grid which approach 2020, which clearly is not the sort of timescale
we can possibly work to. What we are doing is working very closely
with Ofgem, with National Grid and with the industry to make sure
that the grid is fit for purpose going forward. I should make
clear that, in terms of grid access, the Government's role is
to set the policy framework for the industry to bring forward
changes to codes and licences which are subsequently approved
by Ofgem. The key issues that we have tried to identify are the
times that are needed to connect new infrastructure; to look very
clearly at the sorts of planning standards that are required for
renewable generation so that we can identify the way in which
renewables, which typically has a lower load factor than conventional
generation, drives transmission investment compared to conventional
generation; how we make more efficient use of the grid infrastructure
in terms of ensuring the right sort of access rights exist so
that when the wind is blowing, wind can connect and so on, and
that means changing the access rules; and also, how we make sure
that we have the right sort of confidence from generators and
investors in the connection process. We have been doing a number
of things already which pre-date the Renewable Energy Strategy
and will be taken forward by us. The first thing we are trying
to sort through is the Great Britain queue. You may be aware that
in Scotland there is a queue of generation which is trying to
get connection to the grid, and some of that potential generation
may even have planning consents but is further back in the queue
than other generation which is less well developed. So what we
have been doing is encouraging National Grid to come forward with
solutions to speeding up the grid queue. It the Energy White Paper
last May we announced that we would launch a transmission access
review, which we kicked off in July, and we have now produced
an interim report in January, with the intention of producing
a final report in May. That looks at the grid access rules in
the way that I described earlier. It tries to identify ways in
which we can improve infrastructure development so that it is
delivered more quickly, and we try to improve developer confidence
by moving to a situation where, through firm connection dates
being offered by the grid, we can therefore also provide incentives
to National Grid to give developers greater confidence that they
will get a grid connection which is more or less consistent with
their development programme. As I say, we have published an interim
report in January with the intention of producing a final report
in May, which will give us some answers about the sorts of access
rules which we think are necessary going forward and the way in
which we might actually speed up the deployment of the grid. There
are two issues going on here. One is how we use the system and
one is how we build it, because we certainly believe that more
grid will need to be built. As part of the Renewable Energy Strategy
that Chris is taking forward, we will have to look at the rules
of access and infrastructure and see whether any further work
needs to be done. We are presently analysing how much more we
need to do in the light of the larger target, so what was appropriate
when we launched the transmission access review may not necessarily
be enough, taking into account the sort of percentages of electricity
we may need to deliver in order to meet the 15% energy target.
That is the way we are taking the work forward at the moment.
I do not know if there are any further questions.
Q26 Lord Walpole: I am still not
happy about there being the right electricity in the right place.
I am still not happy about that, mainly because you cannot see
electricity. That is the main problem. You can see gas and you
know what it looks like the, if you know what I mean. I just do
not have confidence in the electricity grid in this country being
able to achieve what we expect it to achieve when we start trying
to dribble bits and pieces into it in all sorts of places. For
instance, I know that outside Norwich they are going to put up
a vast thing to get rid of all our rubbish by burning quite a
lot of it. They are going to try and sell the heat as well, which
will be a good thing. Will the grid at Norwich be able to take
that if it is running at full speed the whole time, which it probably
will because we make an awful lot of mess in Norfolk?
Mr Figueira: I must confess that my area
of responsibility is principally the electricity grid within the
renewables deployment work.
Q27 Lord Walpole: But it is the electricity
grid they are going to have to put it into, is it not? There is
no other way they can get rid of the power they are going to generate
there?
Mr Figueira: I think that is right. The
way in which we are trying to develop the thinking on the grid
is essentially to come up with a set of access rules which will
enable renewable generation to connect, when it is able to do
so, and will allow us, taking it forward, as was said earlier,
the fact that, as we get very high levels of renewable generation
on to the system, we also have to deal with the fact that on occasion
we will have to balance it with conventional generation. The sort
of problem we are thinking about is how we develop the grid in
such a way that renewable generation can connect but at the same
time we retain a market and we retain the reliability of the grid.
Q28 Lord Ryder of Wensum: Good afternoon.
Is there a tension between the aim of encouraging renewable energy
generation and locational pricing?
Mr Figueira: It is true to say that in
the UK, in terms of the grid, we have a system of cost-reflective
pricing in terms of use of system charges. That means that those
generators that are furthest away from demand will pay higher
charges, and those reflect the costs of providing the additional
transmission infrastructure. The Government believes strongly
that cost reflectivity in transmission charging is the best approach,
because it reflects our energy policy approach and also it means
that there is a different area, if you like, the financial support,
where things are taken into account in terms of the support required
for getting renewable generation to produce. We do not believe
that cost-reflective charging represents a barrier to investment
in renewables and we note, if I can refer back to the queue, that
there is up to 10 GW of wind in a connection queue in Scotland
which we are trying to resolve through the National Grid process
I described earlier, which is seeking to connect to the system,
which does not suggest that transmission charging per se
is the main factor there, and that actually the grid, or the lack
of availability of it, is the main factor. I should say that the
Government has recognised in section 185 of the Energy Act 2004,
that it is possible that transmission charges may be a barrier
to the development of renewable projects on the Scottish islands,
and that followed a piece of work that was done by the Department
in which the Government came to that conclusion and it is considering
whether a scheme should be made to adjust transmission charges
under section 185, and that work is being taken forward at the
moment. When it did that work, the evidence was that adjusting
transmission charges on the mainland would not bring forward significant
amounts of new renewable generation. So the Government's position
on transmission charging is fairly clear, that it should be cost-reflective.
Q29 Lord Ryder of Wensum: What impact
do the various systems of reinforcement planning and work have
on encouraging renewable generation? Should the UK adopt a "connect
and manage" approach?
Mr Figueira: They are slightly different
issues. If I can deal with the first question first, as I understood
it, we are clear that the way in which the grid is reinforced
at the moment is not totally satisfactory. There are clearly a
number of upgrades which have been taking place in recent years
which have taken far too long to bring forward. Just as an example,
the North Yorkshire upgrade, which was very important for the
security of renewable supply in the UK, took 96 months to secure
planning permission, which is clearly not the sort of timescale
we should be working to. There is also a very important upgrade
at the moment in Scotland, the Beauly-Denny upgrade, which is
undergoing a planning inquiry at the moment. One of the things
the Government is doing is trying to improve the situation through
planning legislation. The Planning Bill at the moment will help
bring both large generation projects forward on a quicker timescale
because they will be dealt with through an Infrastructure Planning
Commission, and that applies to onshore generation projects over
50 MW and offshore generation projects over 100 MW. It will do
so using a National Policy Statement. I should make clear that
that will also apply to large nationally significant elements
of grid infrastructure. The Government is addressing that through
its Planning Bill which will apply to England and Wales.
The Committee suspended from 4.52 p.m. to 5.00
p.m. for a division in the House.
Q30 Chairman: Would you like to pick
up where you left off?
Mr Figueira: I think I will, yes, if
Lord Ryder will bear with me. I think I had finished talking about
the Planning Bill and the way in which the Government was proposing
to improve the planning system in order to allow both generation
of sufficient size and grid infrastructure to be consented more
quickly through the use of a National Policy Statement approach.
I should say that, in terms of transmission infrastructure spend,
Ofgem agreed unprecedented levels of investment in terms of transmission
investment in its last price control review. Having previously
agreed £560 million through the Transmission in Renewable
Generation Investment exercise, it has approved more than £4
billion through the transmission price control review most recently,
which takes us up to 2012. The issue is not the availability of
money to spend; the issue is about how we speed up the consent
and the delivery of the infrastructure. What we need to consider
is how we may need to do more work than is presently done under
the existing systems, for example, more preparatory work may be
a possibility as we go forward through the RES process. I notice
that the rest of this question talks about the UK adopting a "connect
and manage" approach. Perhaps I can go on to that. The way
in which the UK handles investments in transmission infrastructure
is through what is called an "invest and connect" approach
where when the grid knows that enough generators have prepared
to invest in generation, it then invests and all the works carried
out for the connection to take place. When people talk about "connect
and manage", they are talking about a situation where generators
are allowed to connect in advance of the transmission reinforcements
having been done but possibly after local works have been done.
The way that is handled is through a very complicated process
called a balancing system, which effectively enables generators
who cannot in fact connect to the system for security of supply
reasons to be constrained off. I certainly will not go into the
complexities of that because you would wish the bell was ringing!
What we are doing in the transmission access review, we are looking
at a number of access arrangements. One of the ones we are looking
at and one of the ones we did a call for evidence back in August
of last year on was the "connect and manage" approach.
So we are looking at the "connect and manage" approach
in the context of the transmission access review. When we publish
our final report in May, that will set out the view of the most
viable access models for discussion with industry. A lot of the
renewable energy industry does favour a "connect and manage
approach" but, as I said, the costs of running that through
the balancing mechanism could be quite significant and we will
need to think about ways in which those costs could be managed
as we take that model forward for consideration.
Q31 Lord Ryder of Wensum: It has
been drawn to my attention in the interval that we may not be
entirely clear in relation to the earlier question, whether locational
transmission charging is no barrier or just relatively unimportant.
I wonder whether you could just clarify that briefly, please.
Mr Figueira: The Government does not
believe that locational pricing is a significant barrier in respect
of the deployment of renewable energy. I could not say that it
was no barrier at all, certainly, given that it has been accepted
that it may be a barrier in respect of Scottish Islands.
Q32 Lord Ryder of Wensum: Do you
believe that the current regulatory system, the current regulations,
inhibit access to the grid, and, if so, it is it a specifically
UK problem? Could you please cast a bit of light in this context
over the remainder of the European Union?
Mr Figueira: I am not sure I can do the
EU27 as a summary. Clearly, some of the countries we have looked
at are the ones which are regarded as being in the lead in terms
of connecting renewable generation to the grid. I have already
said that we believe that the grid is a barrier to the deployment
of renewable generation. It is a barrier which the Government
recognises, trying to address through the transmission access
review, and it will address it through the Renewable Energy Strategy.
We have an indication of the sorts of areas which we are examining
which show the way in which access is managed and the way in which
the grid is developed in terms of delivering and operating the
infrastructure. Is it a UK-specific problem? I think it is fair
to say, as the proportion of renewable generation on the system
grows and as each country tries to meet its share of the EU target,
we will find that a number of countries will find that grid is
an issue in terms of renewables, particularly in countries where
the sources of renewable generation are some way from the centres
of demand. That is clearly the case in the case of the UK, where
onshore generation is heavily located in Scotland in terms of
wind, and offshore, as we are developing the present and future
rounds of offshore wind. That has to be conveyed to the centres
of demand and that is an issue which has not been an issue historically
because of the way in which large conventional generation was
organised. Is it the same throughout the EU27? There are obviously
other countries which have similar types of profiles to us. Perhaps
I could take Portugal, where, again, it will be using the Atlantic
for its renewable offshore generation. It has plans for wind and
wave, and a lot of its wind is probably located in the North,
where it is mountainous and so on. There will be countries and
that will vary across Europe. In terms of how they are handling
it, I am by no means an expert in the way in which other countries
have dealt with the existing regulation through the Renewables
Directive 2001 on the way in which they are doing it domestically
but certainly the lead countries, like Germany, Denmark and Spain,
which have very high levels of renewable generation, have adopted
slightly different approaches. They have similar approaches in
terms of invest and connect and the delivery of the infrastructure
but they have slightly different approaches in terms of giving
priority access, for example, to renewables on to the grid. The
way it works for them is because the existing Renewables Directive
gives each Member State the discretion on how to implement the
Directive. We have implemented the Directive in a particular way
and they have implemented it in a different way. Essentially,
to answer your question, grid is clearly a barrier. It is not
a UK-specific problem. It is probably a problem which will become
much more apparent as we increase the proportion of renewable
generation throughout Europe and different countries deal with
it in different ways with the discretion provided in the Directives.
Q33 Chairman: Perhaps we ought to
ask Mr Abraham to comment on the EU perspective.
Mr Abraham: Indeed, I think I would echo
what Duarte was saying, because I think, as the different members
of the EU actually tackle the issue of increasing their renewables
coverage, and they come across a number of these issues, both
about grid access but, more particularly, going back to the question
on predictability of the amount of electricity, there is going
to need to be much greater cross-border co-operation and cross-border
passage of electricity in order to balance the whole system, and
indeed, this should encourage greater inter-connectivity between
Member States. To do that, their national regulatory authorities
will need to collaborate, arguably, further than they do at the
moment and we have, quite conveniently, in the Third Package—we
will come to this later—of energy liberalisation, which
is the other big energy issue going through the EU at the moment,
a proposal for an agency to bring together the national regulatory
authorities dealing with cross-border issues. That has come from
the wish to move towards a single European market in energy but,
actually, it will be very useful and, I would suggest, necessary,
to meet the renewables Directive as well.
Chairman: Can we move on to support schemes
now?
Q34 Lord Bradshaw: Can the existing
Renewables Obligation deliver the level of expansion of renewable
electricity that the target for the UK implies? The EU states
which have been most successful in developing their renewables
industries all use fixed price support schemes such as feed-in
tariffs. Should the UK not consider doing the same, given the
scale of the challenge and the speed with which we will need to
act? Has the Government assessed the impact and effectiveness
of the various schemes in operation across the Member States on
encouraging renewable energy? How have these schemes affected
take-up both by producers and commercial and domestic consumers?
The Renewables Obligation does demand a very significant expansion
in what we are doing, and I think this question really aims at
asking you first of all whether a fixed price support scheme such
as feed-in tariffs should be adopted rather because of the scale
of the challenge and the speed with which we need to actually
move. Have you actually done any sort of work in looking at how
some of the more successful states in the EU have brought this
about?
Mr Barton: I think this is a very important
point, the whole way in which we incentivise the renewable electricity.
If I can start off with the question as to whether the RO could
deliver the levels of renewable electricity which we are likely
to need, which you suggest could be 35% plus, depending on what
is achieved and heat and transport, we do not see any reason why
the RO could not incentivise that level, although clearly it would
need some modification beyond what is currently proposed. Most
notably, it would need the end date to be extended beyond 2027,
which is the current end date; the level of the support to be
increased; and possibly the level of the buy-out price to be increased.
With those changes, there is no reason why the RO could not provide
the level of financial support needed, clearly needing to be balanced
by tackling some of the non-financial barriers too. However, we
are aware there is a lot of interest in the question of whether
feed-in tariffs or some other support scheme might be more effective.
There are a few points I would make, if I may. The first is to
say I think both feed-in tariffs and the Renewables Obligation
are effective mechanisms. The RO has, as I mentioned before, already
delivered effectively a tripling of renewable electricity and
is due to do that again by 2015, so it is a powerful instrument
and it is working. Likewise, feed-in tariffs have been successful
in a number of other countries. We are certainly looking at what
we can learn from other countries. I think it is very important
to do so, though making direct comparisons between different countries
I think has to be treated with a certain amount of caution, for
a variety of reasons, including the fact that different Member
States have started from different points. There is a variety
in non-financial barriers that are being faced. There is a variety
in the level of support as well as the type of support and therefore
it is very difficult to attribute directly what in the different
progress that has been made by different Member States is as a
result of the type of mechanism chosen and what is as a result
of some of these other measures. Also, if you do direct price
comparisons, they measure slightly different things. For example,
grid charges are subsumed within feed-in tariffs and not the RO.
You are not always comparing like with like. However, we are looking
carefully at what else we can learn. A couple of other points
I think it is worth bearing in mind if you are thinking of any
change to the system is that we would be very nervous about doing
anything that could disrupt investor confidence. A lot of investments
have been taken on the basis of the current support mechanism,
so a wholesale change could potentially be hugely disruptive.
Also, given the 2020 timescale, the amount of time it would take
to introduce a whole new scheme, to get everyone to understand
it, to get it working effectively and so forth, would probably
cause years of delay. So there are a number of issues that I think
need to be considered before a decision were taken. Therefore,
where we are coming from at the moment is that we are absolutely
committed to the Renewables Obligation and to the reforms we are
taking, but one area where we think that there may be potential
for feed-in tariffs, and we are committed publicly to investigating
this, is specifically in the microgeneration field, where a number
of people have suggested that a change to a feed-in tariff might
be beneficial, not least because of the certainty that it could
give. We are looking at that, though, again, there are a number
of interrelated issues: as well as the type of support—and
even within feed-in tariffs there are a variety of different types
of feed-in tariff and, indeed, other support mechanisms, so it
is not RO versus feed-in tariff; there are a variety of mechanisms,—the
level of support differs, as do the administration of the support
and the non-financial barriers. It is a complex piece but we are
certainly looking at whether, and if so, how, feed-in tariffs
could play a role in what we are trying to do, and also certainly
trying to learn from EU counterparts.
Chairman: I should tell the Committee that I am sure
that the Special Adviser will be circulating to members of the
Committee details of support schemes throughout Europe, in particular
in the United Kingdom,. Without inviting you to answer my question
now, perhaps you might discuss with your colleagues which three
countries you would recommend to this Committee where we should
look at support schemes, incentives, provided by Member States
to their local industries, which three countries we should look
at in particular. I think our Special Adviser has a pretty shrewd
idea but, without asking your opinion now, it would be helpful.
Q35 Lord Bradshaw: How do you envisage
the Guarantees of Origin certificates scheme will work in practice?
To what extent would the enhanced use of Guarantees of Origin
certificates require the harmonisation of support schemes? The
origin of this question about Guarantees of Origin is a great
worry to anybody who is concerned with a resource. It will be
very important in emissions trading, wood for furniture and things.
How do we know that any Guarantees of Origin are genuinely related
to continuing careful or reduced use of carbon wherever this happens?
I really feel that there will be people who will be selling certificates
of origin to the market but actually are not very concerned about
what happens.
Mr Abraham: May I try and answer that
question? Let me have a go. There are two issues here. Yes, the
Guarantee of Origin was something that was established in the
last piece of European legislation on renewables, and that was
very much a voluntary scheme to enable Member States, and indeed
the Commission, to assess how Member States were doing. In the
draft Renewables Directive the proposal is to enhance that, in
particular, to enable some sort of trading mechanism to take place.
The reason for the trading mechanism is to enable or to increase
the cost-effectiveness of meeting the 20% overall target by allowing
countries under certain circumstances to support projects outside
their own national boundaries, in other Member States, where it
is cheaper to do so. That raises various issues, the first of
which is, yes, how can you believe what is said? This has to be
part of the Commission's and individual Member States' robustness
of actually applying this, and no doubt the Commission will have
ways of checking on this very issue. The Guarantees of Origin
essentially say "I, a company, have produced so many gigawatt
hours of electricity through renewable energy" and that will
need to be checked from time to time. I am not sure I have any
more assurance than that the Commission and individual Member
States will have to monitor this.
Q36 Lord Bradshaw: One small follow-up:
is the trade using Guarantees of Origin entirely within the EU
or can you buy them from wherever you wish, say, somewhere in
Africa?
Mr Abraham: The current proposal is that
the trading should be in the EU and with any country that you
can actually physically connect to the EU, and indeed, has some
sort of Guarantee of Origin scheme—again, back to your original
point. That is the current proposal.
Q37 Chairman: Let us just conclude,
if we may, by putting in context what you have been talking about.
You have been talking about renewable energy in terms of EU-wide
energy policy. Perhaps we can ask Mr Abraham to comment. How coherent
are these proposals in the context of the EU's energy policies
in general and the Third Energy Package in particular?
Mr Abraham: We go back to the European
Council year ago, where a European energy policy was agreed. The
three main objectives of that were to secure sustainable, secure
and competitive energy. There are a number of elements in that,
of which the main three are the climate change and energy package
that we have been talking about; the further liberalisation of
energy markets, gas and electricity, within the EU, the so-called
Third Package; and an enhanced external voice of the EU with third
countries. I think the renewables package, as we have touched
on, contributes to two parts of that in terms of moving towards
a low carbon economy but also to security of supply. I think if
you look at the package of measures for greater liberalisation,
they should help the renewables package. If, as we are trying
to provide by the liberalisation package, in particular, to ensure
that access to grids, to networks, is free and is non-discriminatory,
that should help the introduction of new players in the market,
and in particular those producing renewable energy. So I think
there is a synergy there; there is a synergy in the area that
we touched on before about Member States' domestic regulatory
authorities coming together, and I think there is a synergy between
the external and the Renewables Directive in the sense that both
are aimed at improving security of supply essentially by increasing
the variety of sources of energy. The external dimension is in
terms of facilitating the import of energy from countries around
the world and, as we have touched on, the Renewables Directive
will, amongst other things, increase the level of self-generated
energy. With those three aims in mind, that is how those three
elements fit in together.
Chairman: Thank you very much indeed. I am going
to end the session in a second, but I want to thank you. I think
we are wiser. You can see we have been struggling a bit in a brand
new subject. I am going to propose a rather novel procedure in
order to get the most out of your evidence. When you have seen
the transcript and corrected it, I am going to ask the Special
Adviser to lead in private session of the Committee a discussion
of the half a dozen issues that have arisen so that we can be
educated and get our heads around some of the issues that you
raise. Then I will ask the Clerk perhaps to write to you for clarification
on certain points, rather than ask you to pursue a number of points
that it has been suggested I ask you now. Let us wait until we
have had our discussion, distilled our points down, and then we
will ask you for further written advice. The meeting is closed.
Thank you.
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