9. Debate: How do we achieve a low carbon energy system for Wales?

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:37 pm on 20 November 2018.

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Photo of Llyr Gruffydd Llyr Gruffydd Plaid Cymru 6:37, 20 November 2018

The Institute of Welsh Affairs in its Re-energising Wales project has demonstrated that greater ambition and immediate practical action are required to realise the vision for 100 per cent renewable energy, and these actions include upscaling energy efficiency. Of course, you will remember our manifesto pledge for a multibillion pound retrofitting scheme here in Wales. It also mentions how building regulations could significantly increase energy efficiency. You've referred to that, but of course Plaid Cymru was the only party in this Assembly that wasn't happy with the very modest improvement in the Part L regulations that this Government brought forward a few years ago, and now of course we're playing catch-up. Onshore windfarms, offshore windfarms and futureproofing electricity grids—it's all there in the Re-energising Wales work. And of course it isn't just the environmental focus, the economic one is clear as well, because those kinds of investments, according to the Institute of Welsh Affairs, could support some 20,000 jobs annually across Wales during a 15-year investment period, with nearly £7.5 billion in total Welsh GVA created as a result.

You mentioned—well, I mentioned Ynni Cymru. You mentioned the energy atlas, and I'll come to that in a minute. Ynni Cymru, of course, is I believe one way of developing that stronger focus on community-orientated energy development. I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, because every time I get up in these kinds of debates I'll be saying it: we need to move away from the hub-and-spoke model of energy generation to a more dispersed spider web, where energy is used as well as produced locally. That will give us the resilience, and it's happening in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Denmark and other countries and we need to move in that direction as well. I welcome the energy atlas. I think it will help us with mapping out and modelling the potential of renewable energy resources throughout Wales. That investment will enable strategic energy planning that will as well facilitate a bottom-up approach to energy in the longer term.

I'm running out of time, so I will address the amendments very quickly.