4. Statement by the Minister for Climate Change: Energy Price Cap

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:01 pm on 8 February 2022.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 4:01, 8 February 2022

Diolch, Joyce. So, a couple of things there. Absolutely, on the storage point, although really what we need to do is move away from fossil fuels to renewables. One of the issues about the investment and the lack of investment and the investment models is really interesting. So, the UK Government consulted last year, and then accepted, as a result of a piece of work and consultation, a model called a regulated asset base model, which effectively capitalises the cost of investment in renewables and then puts the cost of that onto consumer bills. So, it basically gets the consumer to pay for it. So, it's a wheeze not to have to put any Government money into it. And that's one of the difficulties we have, that we're up against a Government that doesn't put upfront investment in and comes up with a model that puts the price back onto the consumer. And, in fact, they announced that just at the first of the Ofgem price rises at the end of last year in a, even for the Conservatives, remarkably tin-eared way of announcing it, I thought. 

Of course, Deputy Llywydd, we'll be very happy to do feedback on 17 February. Either myself or Jane Hutt, I'm sure, will do a statement in Plenary about the outcome of that, so we can get the advice out to everyone's constituents. And just in terms of off-grid oil, we are looking for innovative ideas and things that we can do at the round-table, as well as sharing things. I'm very interested in whether we could help communities to come together to bulk buy oil, which would get the price down, and to help them put the storage facilities in place for themselves because, as always, the poorer you are, the less likely you are to be able to take advantage of bulk prices, the less likely you are to come together as a community to do that. So, there will be things that we're really interested in looking to see whether we can assist people to do, perhaps with upfront loans in order to get the bulk purchasing in and get the lower price, or a number of other things that we're interested in looking at. So, Joyce, if you have communities you think would be interested in that, I'd be really grateful to work with you to see if we can identify them.