Sammy Wilson

Sammy Wilson

Democratic Unionist Party — East Antrim

Speaking in the House of Commons on 30 April 2025

Debate

Energy Grid Resilience

Contribution

May I assure the House that, not wishing to inflict a by-election on the citizens of East Antrim, I will not be running any marathons—not now or at any other time in future? The Minister has rightly said that the cause of the outage in Spain is yet to be identified, but the fact is that it is linked to 53% of electricity on that day being generated from renewable sources. That should be a sobering warning to all in this House who have been championing the decarbonisation of electricity and the net zero policy. I am glad that there is inertia built into the system, but the Minister has already accepted that that increases the cost of electricity every week because we have to build a new network to deal with the spikes in electricity; build battery storage, which increases the cost of electricity; and keep gas generators idling over expensively, the cost of which is added to consumer bills, in order to bring them on grid when the wind drops. I know that the Minister has to defend the policy of his boss that we will get cheaper electricity, even though there is no evidence of that, but will he accept that building inertia into the system will add considerably to consumers’ bills?

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