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Energy Bill

I share that excitement, but I want to repatriate some of our inventiveness. This country has some of the leading solar photovoltaic suppliers in Europe, but their leading role is primarily based on supplying others, rather than us. A recent high-profile article in The Guardian featured a Scottish company, Pelamis Wave Power Ltd, which has constructed the ““serpent””, a wave-generating machine, off the coast of Portugal. It will be part of a sequence that will deliver 21 MW of energy under Portugal's feed-in tariff regime. That is precisely the inventiveness that we must seek to bring back into our domestic energy agenda. The one thing that we must be able to say is that we have access to wave power that many of our European partners would envy. We must harness that inventiveness on the basis of the security and clarity that a feed-in tariff regime has to offer. I make that point only as a way of reinforcing many that have been made to successive Departments by Government-commissioned studies into the way forward on renewables. Many of the reports have stated specifically that the renewables obligation is an obstacle to the dynamic extension of renewable energy generation in the UK. Even those who have tried to say that we should set lower thresholds have come up with fairly fraudulent arguments about what would be lost if the big energy suppliers ceased to invest. I wish to make two points on that. First, the big energy companies know the obligation that they share with us on the UK's 2020 renewable energy obligations. Any company that does not want to be part of meeting those obligations can simply surrender its part of the energy market, and I am sure that its competitors would gladly clean its plate for it—if a company does not want to be part of this, let it go. Secondly, it is fallacious to say that the companies are already doing what I hope the Secretary of State will ensure we are able to do after this Bill is passed. The fear argument is that somehow this 5 MW threshold would scupper investors' security. Even the figures on the British Wind Energy Association's website make it clear that, in reality, the amount of wind energy being supplied at less than 5 MW—the existing capacity—is 8 per cent., the amount in construction is 0.6 per cent. and the amount in the planning system is no more than 1.2 per cent. So this threshold will not scupper any of the energy companies' plans—the truth is that all their plans have been on a much larger scale. The simpler reality is that the energy companies do not want to go down the path that 18 countries elsewhere in Europe have already taken with the introduction of feed-in tariff legislation. The principal reason for that is that the energy companies do not want to pay citizens for contributing to a renewable energy future, yet any of the partner countries in Europe will tell us that that is precisely what gives dynamism to their renewables agenda. It is brilliant that the Secretary of State has decided to be the driving force in ensuring that Britain occupies the same front line and promotes technology, innovation and scientific research while giving clarity and security to the structure within which that must take place. Some of that clarity must be in the definition of what will be included in the scheme. I think that even the large energy suppliers, perversely, will want the Government to deliver that clarity. They will want clarity about the time scale within which we intend to introduce the scheme, about the pricing regime and about how and where it interfaces with the renewables obligation. It is important that we make this change not just to deliver energy security for the future but to harness some of the potential that is sitting waiting for us. The study that the Government commissioned from a company called Element Energy Ltd sets out the precise scale of potential energy that is waiting for us. The company pointed out that almost 8.9 GW of renewable energy could be delivered for the UK by 2020 with a range of preferential feed-in tariffs. At some point, we will need to return to the practicalities of what those tariffs will be. Different tariffs will need to apply to photovoltaics, to wind energy on different scales and to wave energy. They will have to be discounted over different time periods. The suggestion was that even if we set a starting tariff of 20p per kWh for wind energy, that would deliver 5 GW of new renewable energy by 2020. If we start to put those facts together, we realise that the energy that will be delivered by 2020 has the scope to exceed existing UK energy generation from the whole nuclear industry before any of the new nuclear power stations start to deliver a single watt of energy, which will not happen before 2022. That transformation will be possible, and I would like the Minister to clarify the details rather than sign up to aspirations. There is no point in the House being pretty much united on a desire to set off in a race to a different renewable energy future if we are unable to say when the race will start, how long it will run for and what the course will be. We need clarification of the details today. The amendments that have been tabled would strengthen the timetable, structure and vision of the Government new clause in Lords amendment No. 42. If we can get the Minister to endorse and clarify that this afternoon, we will emerge with a Bill that we collectively as a House of Commons can feel proud of, and which will genuinely take us into our own renewable energy revolution.