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Energy Bill

My Lords, I am glad that I waited for the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, because she has put her finger on the issue about caps. We should perhaps not talk about caps as if they were anything but an artificial limit, because on renewables we are talking about 50 kilowatts. That was put in place as an arbitrary scale when renewables were pumping out very small amounts and 50 kilowatts was seen as unachievable. Now that we have microgeneration technologies that can achieve 50 kilowatts, that limit is seen as a problem because systems have been built around it. It seems ridiculous that regulation rather than what is actually achievable is leading to the design of renewable kit. The noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, made the interesting point that, if we were to threaten ROCs in the present climate, the whole big wind argument would be built on shaky ground. As we have seen, large companies can pull out: I found it disappointing when Shell pulled out of the London Array. The company made that decision for financial reasons, but it then shifted the investment to wind farms in America. It was still investing in renewables but, unfortunately, it seems that we have no system that makes that financially attractive here. We could go into the ROCs argument, but that is irrelevant to this amendment. The relevant point is that 50 kilowatts is a mandatory cap with no meaning, although if we are not to affect ROCs we have to work out what the top limit of such a cap could be. I know from the British Wind Energy Association that no big wind is being put in at less than 2.2 megawatts, so having the cap slightly below that would not affect ROCs in the slightest. There is no problem there. This is where I find the issue interesting, because when we talk about this cap we have to start thinking about the technologies. On microgeneration, the Co-op tower that is covered in solar voltaics does not produce anything near a megawatt. We are thus being slightly aspirational if we have a high target, but there is no reason not to have one. If it is going to affect neither wind nor any investment decision, why should we not be talking about a high limit—a megawatt, a megawatt and a half, or two megawatts—on the caps? That is an issue for the Minister to think about, but it would be wrong of us not to be aspirational for microgeneration, because it needs every help that we can give. All of us who have spoken on microgeneration over a long period want it to take off. I am proud that in a house I am converting I have just put solar panels on my roof. It means that my utility room looks like the engine room of the Starship ““Enterprise””, which is fantastic.