Welcome back. The next item is item 5, a Member debate under Standing Order 11.21 on the community benefits of energy projects. I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to move the motion.

Motion NDM7794 Rhun ap Iorwerth

Supported by Adam Price, Altaf Hussain, Delyth Jewell, Heledd Fychan, Janet Finch-Saunders, Luke Fletcher, Sioned Williams, Tom Giffard

To propose that the Senedd:

1. Notes the importance of renewable energy in efforts to reduce our carbon footprint.

2. Agrees that there is a need to ensure that energy developments bring benefits to the communities in which they are located.

3. Calls on the Welsh Government, either through regulations or new legislation to insist that developers of energy projects must prove the community benefits of their proposed developments by having to conduct community impact assessments and present a community-benefit plan as part of the planning process.

Motion moved.

Thank you very much, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I'm very grateful to the Business Committee in the first instance for giving me the opportunity to set out this motion before the Senedd today, and I'm also grateful to the Members who have supported the motion in front of us.

It's a very timely debate, I think. We are just before the beginning of COP26 in Glasgow. Later on today, Plaid Cymru will lead a debate on the energy sector and the nature and climate crisis.

Point 1 in the motion asks us to note the importance of renewable energy in our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. I don’t think anybody's going to disagree with that. Energy, the way that we use energy, the way that we save energy, distribute it, and, yes, the way that we generate it, are issues that are at the heart of how successful we are going to be in the battle against climate change. But our relationship with energy is also at the heart of our daily lives, and I will be arguing this afternoon that it can have a major impact on the kinds of communities we live in.

I'm asking the Senedd to agree with the second statement in our motion, which is that there is a need to ensure that all energy developments bring benefits to the communities in which they're located, and this is so important, I think. We as a nation have so much to offer in terms of energy development; we could be supplying and fulfilling not just our needs in terms of clean energy and low-carbon energy and renewable energy, but we could be a major exporter, and that could bring significant economic benefits as well as environmental benefits.

But when we are asking communities to provide a home to developments of this kind, we need to realise that they can have a significant impact, so we need to support those communities and consider their needs and their aspirations as communities. I could refer to one proposed energy scheme in Anglesey that exists because of its community—the Morlais scheme to develop a tidal flow scheme on the coast of Anglesey, which is run by a social enterprise, Menter Môn, to keep the profits local. There are a whole host of similar schemes across Wales. I visited Ynni Ogwen recently. I welcome the principle in the Government's target to ensure that at least 1 GW of renewable energy in Wales should be under local ownership by 2030, and I'll remind you that one of the major functions of the Welsh energy company that Plaid Cymru wants to see established—with its headquarters in Anglesey, hopefully—would be to promote community schemes. But it's a very small minority of energy generation that currently happens in this way.

Let me contrast that kind of vision with what is happening on Anglesey at the moment in the field of solar energy. Now, recent decisions by the Welsh Government to earmark large parts of Anglesey as a solar development site have provided opportunities for major international companies to have an easier pathway towards permission to create solar farms—huge farms. The results are to be seen already. It's frightening how quickly things have happened. Enso Energy has announced plans for a 750-acre solar farm; Lightsource BP have plans to create 350 MW of solar energy that extends to over 2,000 acres; the Low Carbon company has identified 150 acres for Traffwll solar farm; EDF has bought a 190-acre site with permission for a solar farm on the north of the island, and that's on top of the plans that have been developed already. We're talking here about huge areas of land, including, of course, Môn Mam Cymru, good agricultural land, and we're talking about the communities around those areas and within those areas.

I have no doubt that Anglesey can make a major contribution in solar energy developments, but the truth is that the plans on the table are going to leave a huge footprint on parts of rural Wales with very little benefit for those communities—almost no jobs and no expectations in terms of wider financial benefits or otherwise. What do developers allege as local benefit? EDF's website says that £10,000 will be paid as a community benefit on an annual basis—only £10,000. Now, the developers of the Alaw Môn farm invite plans for a sustainable project in the area. They also promise that their scheme will provide opportunities to rest land that has been intensively farmed—I think that that is an insulting attempt to put a spin on the loss of agricultural land.

What this tells us is that there is nothing in place to ensure that there is community benefit at all, and that's why, in this proposal, I'm calling on the Welsh Government, either through regulations or new legislation, to insist that developers of energy projects have to prove the community benefits of their proposed developments by having to conduct community impact assessments and present a community benefit plan as part of the planning process.

Real benefit could come in several forms. Significant financial benefits are the most obvious, of course. But, in an e-mail to me this morning outlining the payments to communities that they say that they make, emanating from their projects in Wales, RWE say:

'The provision of community benefits from renewables development is currently a voluntary initiative.'

And that's one of the problems. I put forward a motion for new legislation to the Senedd recently after the Senedd legislative team confirmed that there would be a need for primary legislation to demand an assessment of community benefit of this kind. I wasn't selected in the ballot, but the debate is certainly still live. In that context, I welcome RWE's statement today:

'We support the concept that there should be a legislated standard amount of community benefit per megawatt or megawatt hour produced from projects that proceed.'

That would, I think, be an important step forward. But benefit can come in other forms too. It can mean real promises for jobs—economic prosperity of that kind—strengthening supply chains; cheaper energy bills, possibly, or, more environmentally positive, investment in energy efficiency within those communities; charging networks for electric vehicles; home batteries or solar energy for the home that is subsidised. What about sharing profits genuinely with communities? Buying permission for the solar farm: that's what EDF did. What about the profits that the company that got that permission and sold it on? A proportion of that company's profits, I think, should stay local.

But it's not just listing benefits of that kind that I would want developers to do through holding an assessment. That's not just what we are talking about, but measuring the impact on rural areas, on losing those green areas that are so important to us; the impact on property prices in rural areas, and the impact on people's quality of life too. That's difficult to put a price on, perhaps, but it's so important. Considering that the impact of an individual scheme, or the cumulative impact of multiple schemes, and that's the problem that we are facing on Anglesey—. Considering that impact, what I would want to see is efforts to provide that energy generation that we do need in different ways.

Rather than using a block of thousands of acres, what about hundreds of smaller blocks, following the energy distribution lines— more landowners benefiting a little, rather than a few landowners benefiting a great deal? What about using, through strengthening the distribution system, agricultural shed roofs, factory roofs, the roofs of chapels, churches, schools, community centres and so on? What about installing panels alongside land boundaries and hedgerows over large areas, creating biodiverse corridors, while keeping the fields productive? What about verges on roads? One idea that was suggested to me today: using the central reservation of the A55 for solar panels. I don't know; maybe that's possible too.

So, let's think outside of the box. By being creative, I think that we could generate energy on a very large scale by working with, rather than against, communities. I have talked about solar mainly today, because that is the major issue with regard to energy projects on Anglesey, but it could include all kinds of other generation methods.

Some have argued with me that not thinking in this creative way could create a risk of turning people against renewable energy projects and could prevent progress. One of the major net zero prizes would be to be able to engage with communities with regard to decarbonisation and facilitate it. We are already seeing some frustration locally, I have to say, as a result of losing influence over whether plans will receive permission or not, and I think that holding the community benefit assessments would bring the community back to the heart of planning decisions with regard to energy. I look forward to hearing the contributions this afternoon and the response of the Government.

Thank you, Rhun, for bringing this debate forward, and whilst you do have some concerns about solar, it’s fair to say, along the north Wales coast, those concerns now extend to the huge windfarm projects that are coming our way.

Dirprwy Lywydd, we know that around 58,000 work in the energy and environment sectors in Wales, generating over £4.8 billion in revenue, and this sector is primed for continued expansion over the coming years. Wales currently has 86 operational windfarms, the potential to generate around 10 GW from marine energy, a mature solar energy sector, and a tidal range capable of providing significant generation opportunities along the Welsh coastline.

The Marine Strategy Regulations 2010 required the Welsh Government to take the necessary measures to achieve or maintain good environmental status of marine waters by 31 December 2020, and the Minister and I know that that deadline has been missed. Marine biodiversity continues to decline. Why not reverse the trend by seeing offshore windfarms and the seabed connectors used as the basis for seabed ecosystem recovery and blue carbon sequestration?

I’ve been undertaking some very constructive discussions with Professor Chris Baines who lives in my constituency, and he’s a renowned author on such matters. He has rightly outlined that if windfarms can become—. If they’re going to be there, can they become sanctuary areas with minimal seabed disturbance? And if this can be combined with proactive habitat restoration in the form of such things as artificial reef application to the turbine bases, then the wind energy infrastructure could actually make a unique and enormously positive contribution to marine recovery and carbon net zero, while subscribing to our biodiversity and conservation aims. So, Minister, could I ask, what steps are you taking to encourage the involvement of any future renewable energy developers in Welsh marine habitat regeneration projects such as this? What steps are you taking to encourage the diversion of community spend towards planting efforts, like those of seagrass meadows, which are known to capture carbon up to 35 times faster than tropical rain forests?

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds’s proposal for a marine development plan would provide clarity on how much development is sustainable within Welsh seas, and where it is best placed. In reply to a written question to you, Minister, you confirmed that the Welsh Government were initiating a two-year programme of work to map potential strategic resource areas. So, with this in mind, would you update us on the progress of this mapping activity and confirm to us today a deadline for delivery?

A report by Zero Waste Scotland estimated that as many as 5,613 turbines will be decommissioned between 2021 and 2050, generating between 1.25 million and 1.4 million tonnes of material. And, of course, I’ve raised concerns myself recently about how the turbine blades, at the moment, are not recyclable. So, in Denmark, the Re-Wind Network is repurposing these structures into various architectural elements, such as bicycle shelters and footbridges. Rotterdam has a 1,200 sq m children’s playground featuring a slide tower, tunnels and ramps, all made from decommissioned wind turbine blades. What steps are you taking to produce data on the windfarm decommissioning process, Minister? And will you commit to working with new developers to introduce a requirement that sees in advance them to repurpose their equipment in a way that actually benefits our communities and, indeed, our environment?

Finally, the Minister knows that the Awel y Môr, BP Morgan and Mona offshore windfarm projects are of a major concern to many. In fact, when these are developed, it has been said by many experts in the field that there will be an over-proliferation of wind turbines on the north Wales coast. Conwy County Borough Council, to date, one of their committees has now shown their true objections to the huge scheme that is the Awel y Môr scheme. It cannot be right that there is such little protection for our fishermen who, Minister—Minister—will be actually, you know, their livelihoods could be threatened by a scheme on the close horizon, just 10.6 km off the coast. We are in a nature crisis, yet there is a real risk that these schemes could have a detrimental impact on marine species, our tourism offer and, indeed—

Can the Member conclude now, please?

Yes. And, indeed, the impact of night visuals on our much treasured darkened skies. We need renewable energy, but I implore this Welsh Government, and the Minister, to ensure that any new renewable schemes, that there is that perfect healthy balance between our biodiversity and conservation efforts. Thank you.

Alun Davies.

I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful as well to Rhun ap Iorwerth for bringing forward this debate. When I was reading the order paper and I read the title of the debate—community benefits of energy—the word that stuck out at me was 'community', of course, and it's something that, quite often, is forgotten when we talk about having a much richer energy mix than we have at present. And I would like to put the word 'community' back into our energy policy.

I'm very pleased that both Ministers are here with us this afternoon. I think, in the past, it's probably been true that the machinery of Government has actually worked against having a Welsh energy policy rather than enabled it. Certainly, when I was in Government with responsibility for energy, I was one of three Ministers in that Cabinet who had responsibility for energy, and the inevitable consequence, of course, wasn't a single energy policy but three energy policies, and we managed to achieve virtually nothing except a publication of plans and strategies, because you had a level of confusion. The Government didn't know what its policy was, and I believe that the opportunity we have now, with the new machinery of Government, is for the Government to have a clear idea of what it seeks to achieve, but more importantly, how it seeks to achieve it.

I believe we do need to look hard at what the energy mix is going to be in the future. The recent news about—[Interruption.] Yes, if you let me finish the sentence. The recent news about the development of modular nuclear reactors is good news, I believe. It might well be good news for sir Fôn; it might well be good news for other sites as well, and good news in terms of lowering our carbon output at the same time as securing baseload supply.

Thank you. I found your comments really interesting, but do you not think it's a bit disappointing for anybody watching this debate that both Ministers are on their phones?

No, it isn't. I think we need to elevate the debate rather than try to reduce it. And, do you know, Jayne—? I'm looking at you, Jayne. Janet, I would implore you not simply to read out a speech, but to appreciate what that means, and that goes beyond simply reading somebody else's words. And I think it's important—[Interruption.] I think it's important that we have a serious conversation about where this is going. So, allow me to make progress, please.

I appreciate what the new Government is seeking to achieve, and I appreciate and I very much agree with what both Ministers here have said, at different times, about what their ambitions and what their visions are. What I would say to them is this: keep a close eye. Quite often we talk about the deficient settlement that we have as being a bad thing, but in this case, actually, in energy terms, it means that we could have a much stronger focus on the community aspects of where we are. And my fear is that we would go down the road that Rhun and Janet have described, where we have very large-scale developments that are inappropriate for the places in which they are placed and located, and also inappropriate as to what we want to achieve as part of a wider climate policy and a wider community policy.

For me, what I would like to see the Welsh Government focusing on is distributed generation; a focus on what a community can do in order to deliver generation, both for its needs and for the needs of the locality. I'm interested to understand how the Minister, in responding to this debate, will speak about how we can deliver the mechanisms and means necessary to have local generation providing energy for local needs, but also contributing to a grid. And I want to see the Welsh Government working at this.

When I was doing some research on this recently, I realised that the last time the Welsh Government had uploaded any information on community energy to its website was five years ago. There's been very little work from the Welsh Government in the last Senedd on how we will deliver community energy. The evaluation of the previous community energy scheme, Ynni'r Fro, was quite mixed, but that's not necessarily a bad thing because lessons were learnt. Some of the mistakes that were made were made in seeking to deliver a scheme for the first time, and that's always going to happen. But we're not learning the lessons of that and applying it in a new way, with new schemes to support community regeneration. And, as a consequence, those of us who represent different parts of this country are put in the terrible situation of having to say, 'Yes, we support renewables, but do we really support the industrialisation of a community, the industrialisation of a landscape that at the same time we wish to protect?' And we don't want to be in that situation, but we are being forced into that situation because we don't have the rich energy policy that delivers the community generation and the distributed generation that means that we can achieve our climate ambitions, our energy ambitions, our social ambitions and our economic ambitions. And I believe that—. And I can see even without my glasses, Deputy Presiding Officer, that your patience is being exhausted. [Laughter.]

So, I will bring my remarks to a close, but I hope that the Minister in replying to this debate will, first of all, make a commitment to launch a community energy scheme as soon as possible within this Senedd and learn the lessons of past schemes; and will ensure that the machinery of Government that we have in place now, which I believe is a great improvement on what we've had in the past, will be able to deliver an energy policy that means that we achieve our ambitions, both in terms of our vision and how we seek to do that.

I did give extra time because you had that intervention, but you were stretching it a little bit. [Laughter.] Altaf Hussain.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am delighted to be a co-sponsor of this debate. We are a country with the most incredible landscape and seascape, rich in windy mountain ranges and spectacular coastlines, with the ability to generate green energy in a way that would benefit not only Welsh communities, but add significantly to the UK’s future energy needs.

There is of course the potential for green energy to provide a higher number of jobs in the future, highly skilled and better paid in developing and constructing the new technologies to deliver our energy needs. A new industrial revolution fit for the twenty-first century. The Welsh Government has talked of the potential growth in the green economy, and whilst I welcome economic development and renewal based on utilising the might of our environment, I know that energy developments need also to be focused on the benefits that such investments can bring to local communities.

There are of course the obvious local benefits to infrastructure, and the chances of employment in planning and engineering, but there are also many examples of energy projects that have worked to provide additional benefits to their local communities. Examples from some energy developments have included measures to combat fuel poverty, with funds being made available to support the retrofit of local homes to make them more energy efficient.

Some companies have invested in community funds, locally established and managed by local people, providing grants to organisations and projects, not just as a one-off but as a sustained community investment. In some cases, these local funds have used hundreds of thousands of pounds.

There are, however, challenges for the Government. Ministers need to understand the potential of their role as enablers. There needs to be a greater ambition in Government to work with industry to deliver new energy projects that will change the economic profile of Wales for the better, increase the supply and range of jobs, and maintain local benefits to the community.

To attract development in Wales, we need people with the vision and skill to articulate why energy developers should invest here. Why come here when they could invest elsewhere in the UK? What is it about Wales that makes development here an attractive proposition? If Government wants a green jobs revolution, then it needs to build a relationship with those in the sector—ambition on its own won’t make it happen. And it needs to be a relationship where developers understand the importance we place on community, utilising the benefits of investment and working together to build a greener Wales, not forgetting that, here in Wales, we are very near to nature, and we don’t want to spoil that by erecting 850 ft tall turbines, making our Wales ugly, as is planned for Y Bryn. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer.

I had a very timely visit last week to the Pen y Cymoedd windfarm. For anyone not familiar, it's the largest onshore windfarm in England and Wales, and it straddles the top of my constituency and several others. It has got 76 turbines, hardly any of which are visible from the valley floor, and in an average year it will power the equivalent of 188,000 homes. To put that in perspective, that's about 15 per cent of Welsh households—a really important contribution. It has also put a lot of money in the Welsh economy; 52 per cent of the original £400 million investment went directly to Welsh firms, and this secured work for more than 1,000 workers in Wales during its construction. It has created apprenticeship opportunities, and it has also protected the environment and boosted biodiversity. I'm a species champion for the nightjar, which nests at this site, so I've welcomed the opportunity to be able to follow this aspect of their work.

The windfarm has also operated a particularly ambitious community benefit fund. Each year until 2043, £1.8 million is available for businesses and groups across the Cynon, Afan, Neath and Rhondda valleys. And importantly, I think, the fund hasn't been imposed by external agents. Rather, the people who have been involved in drawing up the vision are the local experts—people who live and work in those communities, who know and use local services, who understand the area they live in, what's available and what's missing. This fund has been supporting communities since the windfarm went operational in 2017. Between then and April 2021, in my constituency alone, 129 organisations and businesses have been directly supported. That funding, just to groups in my constituency, is worth around £3 million. Some grants are small, for example hundreds of pounds made available through a microfund grant, but other funds, accessed through the vision fund, are more substantial, for projects that contribute to delivering the communities' vision.

So, what's been supported with that money? Well, businesses, choirs and cultural groups, mental health support and well-being promotion, environmental initiatives, community halls, heritage projects, sports teams, family groups, schemes to support older people and to commemorate those who served their country. The fund has also supported transformational large-scale projects like Aquadare, the popular splash pad in Aberdare park. It's helped repurpose St Elvan's church to become an attractive community space, and it's played a role in creating the newly opened Cynon Linc community hub. The fund has supported everything from arts societies to defibrillator charities, and, more recently, it launched a COVID emergency fund, which can be accessed to provide urgent-needed cashflow or to support diversification for something COVID-specific. Over £0.5 million has been distributed through that to support 32 businesses and organisations, and it's enabled a further 23 COVID response projects to get off the ground and support those most in need within local communities.

It's clear that we need renewable energy. But with that, we need projects that benefit their communities. Turning to the third point of the motion, that calls on Welsh Government to insist that developers of energy projects must prove the community benefits of their proposed developments by having to conduct community impact assessments and present a community benefit plan as part of the planning process. I fully agree with this proposal, and I'd like to see us empower our communities to have the very highest expectations from community benefits, to co-produce plans for community benefits and to think more about upfront investment schemes, such as one seen in Scotland recently, where the community weren't content with the traditional fund that local good causes could apply into, and instead, what they wanted was a fleet of electric cars that could be shared by the village, and they got it. The opportunities for community benefits are truly endless, but this potential can only be fully exploited if people are given ideas and information about what is possible.

I just want to close by noting one important point that the motion omits, and that's how we can best encourage community and co-operative energy production. The cross-party group on co-operatives and mutuals heard last week from various speakers who all emphasised the benefits of community schemes. Robert Proctor of Community Energy Wales, for example, described how 100 per cent of the profits from these go to the local communities that control them. They produce green energy at a local level, but they also create—

Can the Member conclude now, please?

[Inaudible.]—economic benefits. So, there is much more that we can do, and that must be the focus of the Welsh Government.

Thank you to the Member from Anglesey for bringing this debate to the Chamber.

Wales has a wealth of renewable and green energy potential, and it would be remiss of me not to start, given that Rhun ap Iorwerth has secured this debate, by mentioning the opportunities in Ynys Môn. He's mentioned solar, but the Wylfa Newydd nuclear energy site is a campaign I know his constituency colleague, the Member of Parliament for Ynys Môn, Virginia Crosbie, has championed powerfully. But I'd like to focus on a project off the coast of my own constituency of Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire: the groundbreaking, multimillion pound Blue Gem Wind project, a joint venture between TotalEnergies, one of the world's largest energy companies, and Simply Blue Energy, a pioneering Celtic sea energy developer. The project will develop floating offshore wind, known as FLOW, in the waters of the Celtic sea.

FLOW is set to become a key technology in the fight against climate change, with over 80 per cent of the world's wind resource in waters deeper than 60m. Independent studies have suggested there could be as much as 50 GW of electricity capacity available in the Celtic sea waters off the UK and Irish coasts. This renewable energy resource could play a key role in the UK meeting the 2050 net-zero target required to mitigate climate change. Floating wind—FLOW—will provide new low-carbon supply chain opportunities, support coastal communities and create long-term benefits for the region. In my own constituency, it is estimated that Blue Gem's first 1 billion watts of floating wind energy could potentially deliver over 3,000 jobs and £682 million in supply chain opportunities, opening up a whole new world of offshore renewables with Pembrokeshire at its heart, unquestionably benefiting the community.

The first demonstration project in the Celtic sea, the 96 MW Erebus project, will become one of the largest floating offshore wind projects in the world when constructed in 2026. This will then be followed by Valorous, a 300 MW early commercial project, again, in the Celtic sea, which would see nearly 280,000 homes powered per year, while saving over 455,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year. But what is truly incredible about the Blue Gem Wind project and the opportunities that present themselves in the Celtic sea is that not one area alone truly benefits, and neither can it deliver the project alone. It has to be spread across a number of areas and number of ports. This brings further spread of the community benefit of these new projects, as skilled jobs and economic benefits are not concentrated in a small area.

Communities in south-west Wales, the south-east of the Republic of Ireland and shipyards in Northern Ireland and Scotland can all benefit from this project. But these benefits aren't going to appear without active involvement from Government on all levels. Commercial projects such as these work at a speed not normally seen within governmental departments, and I know the Member from Blaenau Gwent raised the historical concerns around energy policy previously. Speed is of the essence when it comes to these projects, to ensure that they are not missed and the community benefit isn't missed either. We need to understand the constraints that these businesses and projects work under and do what we can to streamline the process. This isn't a call for bypassing key planning and regulatory constraints, but working in a speedy and constructive manner to help these projects get off the ground and deliver their environmental, economic and community benefits. In every corner of Wales, we have examples of projects striving to make a difference. They have the determination, they have the enterprise, we just need the confidence to unleash it. Diolch yn fawr.

I call on the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I think there's been a great deal of consensus in the Senedd this afternoon on the importance of renewable energy and how vital it is to make sure that this is rooted in our communities, both in terms of getting acceptance, but also in terms of realising the benefits beyond the broader benefits or helping us to reach net zero. We agree with the Member's position that we should ensure our communities feel the benefits of hosting these essential developments, and I've a lot of sympathy with the discomfort he expressed about large-scale solar farms, in particular, popping up across the country, not mentioning any in particular. I think we are better off focusing solar on buildings than we are taking up large bits of land.

This was a theme that came across in a number of Members' speeches; there's obviously a balance to be struck on the environmental impact. Janet Finch-Saunders, in her remarks, made reference to the ocean bed regeneration. That's an important point, as well as other examples given of where developments weren't quite a fit with their local communities. This, I think, is one of the delicate balances we have to strike. We know that, in order to reach net zero, we're going to have to make more cuts in our emissions in the next 10 years than we have over the last 30 years, and that pace and scale are going to have to quicken in the years beyond that. So, there's an imperative for us to act at scale, at pace, but we also need to bring communities with us and we need to be mindful of the other impacts of these developments. We're going to have to feel our way through that, frankly; there is no template for doing that sensitively.

I completely agree with the thrust of the debate about the ownership of renewable assets locally, and we must develop strong Welsh supply chains and job opportunities, as Samuel Kurtz just outlined. In terms of the specific project he mentioned of the floating wind in the Celtic sea waters, I know my colleague Julie James spoke at a UK ports conference this morning, and it is a project that we are looking at carefully. We want to develop as many different varieties of projects as we can, and, as I say, involving communities is key.

The most effective way of securing benefit is through local ownership, and our programme for government has a target to increase public and community-owned renewables by 100 MW by 2026. We recognise the need to have support in place to meet this ambition. The Welsh Government energy service is doing excellent work supporting public bodies and communities to develop schemes, and we are giving financial support to progress projects. To give one example, the energy service helped the Egni co-op to invest more than £4 million in rooftop solar across Wales, generating free power to community organisations and to schools, in fact, including shares in the co-op to some schools in the upper Amman valley, which I think is an excellent project I'm keen to see how we can spread more widely across Wales.

Despite the challenges of COVID, in the last financial year, we did support the installation of £35 million-worth of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, including 9 MW of renewable energy. By 2030, we have a target of 1 GW of renewable energy generation to be locally owned. Rhun ap Iorwerth mentioned two projects in north-west Wales that I visited recently, in fact, Ynni Ogwen and Menter Môn. Both have done excellent work with communities, capturing the benefits locally, as well as doing it in a way that is sensitive to the local environment. I think there's a lot we can all learn from their excellent work. We have set an expectation that all renewable energy projects should have at least an element of local ownership in them from now. Again, this is one of other dilemmas we face, because, clearly, in order to reach these targets, we want significant developments that can help us get towards our objectives. But that too often does mean large foreign-owned multinational companies having the wherewithal and the capital to come in and take these developments forward.

That is obviously something we want to encourage, and we've worked closely with that sector over recent years, but we know there are limits to what the private sector can do to support renewable energy generation in Wales and to bring communities with them, and to give the scale of the rewards from the schemes that they deserve. And there were a number of examples mentioned of how trivial the sums being offered to some communities are. And clearly that is not what we want to see. So, we are, through the Government energy service, working with communities and public bodies to explore ownership options, and we've been developing guidance with their input to assist with their negotiations. And we're beginning to see evidence of large developers taking positive steps to engage with our communities, but it's fair to say we're not where we need to be. Engagement is patchy and the approach is inconsistent. 

Tomorrow, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm beginning another deep-dive exercise, this time into renewables in Wales, and I'll be exploring what more we can do to extract wealth from private development and support more community ownership and development in Wales. And we'll be exploring the possibility of establishing a publicly owned energy developer to accelerate the delivery of renewables that will bring a greater level of community and public benefit than the current models offer. We do, of course, need to work with private developers and, as has been mentioned, with the supply chain. There are opportunities here for green jobs and green skills, and we need to make sure we maximise those benefits. 

So, we're building a picture of the pipeline of projects coming forward and their supply chain and workforce needs, and we're working with our colleges to develop the skills of the future and supporting local businesses to supply into the new market. And also, crucially, we are pressing the Crown Estate and the UK Government to make local economic benefits a material consideration in the granting of sea-bed rights and contracts. And we're also looking at how we can use the Welsh Government woodland estate and other publicly owned land to offer immediate opportunities to develop projects that help their communities. 

So, I think there is a lot going on. I recognise Alun Davies's point about approaches being fragmented and a focus on strategies rather than delivery marring too much of Government's efforts across the world, and we need to make sure that, with setting up this portfolio, we are focused on action and delivery and pace, and I can pledge that we are doing what we can to do that. We can't move as fast as we want to do, that is one of the great frustrations of this role. These are incredibly complex projects, and the process of bringing all the different moving parts together can often be far slower than we'd like them to be. And that is the challenge for us all, because we know the science and the challenge is urgent, and we all have a responsibility to try to make sure that the pace of delivery matches that. But, I certainly would say to Alun Davies that I wouldn't mistake—

Will you take an intervention?

I will, but I would just say to him that I wouldn't mistake the uploading of information to a website with a lack of activity on community energy. 

Well, there's certainly a lack of activity in terms of communicating what you're doing to anybody in the world at all. But the point I'd like to make is that, quite often, and it's one of the lessons from Ynni'r Fro, a great deal of Government time is spent arguing over proposals with other parts of the public sector. And what is required from Government is to ensure that Government not only sets the lead, delivers some of the seed funding that is required in order to do this, but also ensures that you don't have public money being spent on two sets of barristers arguing with each other over a single application. And Government could take a real lead in that. 

Well, clearly that's unarguable. And one of the focuses of the deep dive that I'm starting tomorrow is going to be how we energise and mobilise a coalition for change across the public and private sector to really get some pace going. Because, as we all agree here this afternoon, the prize is great and the cost of inaction is too difficult to contemplate. Diolch.

I call on Rhun ap Iorwerth to reply to the debate. 

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. I think this has been a really valuable discussion, actually, and can I first of all thank the Minister for those words, when he said that he is coming close to establishing, hopefully, a body that will encourage and promote publicly owned energy in Wales? That sounds very much to me that Plaid Cymru's long-standing campaign to establish an ynni Cymru, an energy Wales body, has come to fruition and I'm delighted that it sounds as if Welsh Government is about to put something very, very similar to that in place. And I think that that's something very, very positive, because it's a means, I think, to have a real focus on the kind of energy developments that we want in Wales.

Thanks for the contributions. Yes, some interesting ideas, not just community benefits; Janet Finch-Saunders talking about even environmental benefits that we can gain from renewable energy projects, enhancing marine biodiversity, even. But we're talking today about the community benefits—I'm pleased that in Vikki Howells's constituency, she's happy that the benefits are coming—but you said yourself that they're voluntary, and that is the point here: we need mechanisms to ensure that they flow automatically from such projects, and whilst no, the motion doesn't mention community and co-operative energy, I'm sure you will have picked up on the fact that that is at the very heart of the kind of vision that I certainly have and I think most Members here have too.

Just a special mention to Alun Davies and his contribution: exactly the kind of vision that I have, and in saying that 'community' is a word that has largely been forgotten from energy policy and it needs to be reinstated there, that is exactly the point, I think, that I'm trying to make today. We can have all sorts of bold visions in terms of reaching our climate change goals, which absolutely we need to pursue with vigour, but we have to remember that many of the projects take place within, and affect directly, communities where people actually live, and it has to be a symbiosis.

So, the Minister said in opening his words that there is a lot of consensus here today, and I think that's very, very important. I didn't quite pick up on whether Government is going to be voting for the motion as it stands today; I do certainly hope that the Senedd today will back this motion. The Minister said that we have to bring communities with us. Local ownership absolutely has to be the aim, but as it stands, Welsh Government has enabled and empowered the large multinationals to pick on parts of Ynys Môn and other parts of Wales as areas where they think they have an automatic, almost, right to pursue their developments. That can't be the case, and I will gladly work with Government to be a bridge between my communities and Government in putting forward the case that somehow, those multinational companies have to go beyond the voluntary, have to go beyond the lowest possible threshold they think they can get away with when it comes to local benefits, and hopefully, we can work towards strong regulation at the very least, and I think legislation also to make sure that our communities don't become victims of renewable and other energy developments, but become real partners in them, too. Thank you.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, the motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.