Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 9 October 2019.
Firstly, I’m very pleased that you support the Caerau project—it did come about after some very hard work, I think, by Bridgend County Borough Council, but also the support from our Smart Living programme, which secured a role for Bridgend as a demonstrator in the Catapult energy planning pilot. And, obviously, we supported them, as a Government, to get to that stage. As you say, the report made several recommendations. They absolutely called for the direction that we’ve set out in ‘Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales’. I think the role of local authorities in energy, which was lost after privatisation—I think it’s going to be absolutely key to the future of our energy system. So, we have done a great deal to support local authorities. We’ve brought forward new energy efficiency and generation projects. We’ve also highlighted the very important role that they have to play in low-carbon areas. In relation to the recommendations, we’ve brought forward a variety of actions to support the recommendations. So, for instance, one of them was the introduction of the statutory duty, as you mentioned, to develop and implement area-wide, low-carbon plans over a set timetable. It wasn’t in the final report, but we looked at that and we’ve started carrying out energy planning, for instance, and modelling to ensure specific opportunities and constraints are considered within the context of an ever-evolving energy system.