Local and Community Energy Generation Projects

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:36 pm on 10 March 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:36, 10 March 2020

I thank the Member for both of those important questions. Llywydd, I share something of the frustration that I hear from local generators, of the difficulty in getting National Grid connections. And I spoke about this with the incoming chief executive of Ofgem, in a conversation with him on Friday, and I look forward to him coming to Wales to continue that conversation. And Welsh Government officials are meeting with the National Grid and distribution network operators today. Because we need investment at the UK level, in innovation and cost reduction for storage, and for grid connection. And in some parts of Wales, our opportunities to take advantage of the many natural assets that Wales has for renewable energy generation—whether that's onshore wind or marine—both of those are being held back by the lack of investment in National Grid infrastructure here in Wales. So the Member makes a very important point about that, and about the need for National Grid to attend properly to the needs of Wales.

In relation to battery storage, and innovations of that kind, the Welsh Government wants to play our part in supporting industries that are developing new technologies in that field. My colleague, Ken Skates, has supported an important development in the Neath Port Talbot area that is all about battery storage and the technologies that will allow that sort of local storage on which the ambitions that we have for renewable energy generation here in Wales will depend.