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Meeting of the Parliament 18 April 2012

18 Apr 2012 · S4 · Meeting of the Parliament

Item of business

Project Transmit

Gibson, Rob SNP Caithness, Sutherland and Ross Watch on SPTV

The problem that we have is that Scotland is caught in the trap of an organisation called Ofgem, which was created in circumstances that do not reflect the needs of our country today. We are painfully seeing it trying to find ways in which to adapt to the real geography of Scotland, and it is doing so with some difficulty. To us, the islands of Scotland are an integral part of our country, but it is clear that, to Ofgem, that is too much to bear in terms of being able to make a plan that fits the needs of all our areas.

I do not want to repeat the arguments that have been made in detail. Instead, I want to comment on a couple of points to show why it is necessary to get decisions much more quickly.

Of course there must be consultation with the energy utilities and so on. The processes must be gone through, but they must be simplified. There has not been a discussion by the Government in London about simplifying the process of creating an opportunity for us to move forward quickly on new sustainable renewables. In addition, there is a contradiction in the way in which the Government in London is operating to promote the renewables, which has a bearing on this debate.

My colleague Lord Thurso, the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, has suggested in answers that he gave at Westminster that the Government is going to promote the first marine energy park in Scotland in the Pentland Firth this summer. That would add to an existing marine energy park that has been announced for south-west England.

It is interesting to see from the figures that the minister gave that developers in the south-west of England would be paid to develop offshore there under the current charging regime. That makes the marine energy park there quite attractive. However, marine energy park developers on both sides of the Pentland Firth would have to pay £21.958097 per kilowatt for access to the grid. That contradiction will not help us have such development in Orkney or on the mainland of Scotland. If Ofgem is producing something, it will have to do so quickly or the UK Government may not announce a marine energy park for Scotland, because the contrast in outlook for the marine energy park in south-west England compared with that in north-west Scotland is embarrassing.

That leads me to suggest that, looking at the debate as it has developed, there are small schemes that require access to the grid and not just in the islands; plenty parts of the mainland have a very poor grid and people want access to it. Ofgem has been reviewing the problem of getting access to the grid and, from the discussions that it concluded in March, it looks as though, under the changes, the amount of liability and security required from generators to access the grid will be significantly reduced. That is all very well, but I have constituents in the Applecross Community Company who are attempting to create a small hydro scheme. SSE, which manages the grid in our part of the world, wants to charge them in the region of £667,000 for access to the grid and to create a grid strengthening that would allow them to export electricity.

There are many people in the country who cannot get into the renewables revolution—in this case, it is a hydro scheme in Applecross—because of the huge costs involved. In fact, we will help to reduce fuel poverty by getting more people to generate their own electricity locally and that will help many people to prosper in the future.

14:33

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Meeting of the Parliament 18 April 2012

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