3. What progress has the Welsh Government made towards its target of meeting 70 per cent of Wales's electricity demand from renewable sources by 2030? OQ59073

Thank you, Natasha. In 2021, renewables projects in Wales generated the equivalent of 55 per cent of our electricity use. Evidence published alongside our review of energy targets shows there is a pipeline of projects in development to meet our 2030 target, an ambitious but credible route to our proposed 100 per cent target by 2035.

Thanks, Minister. I recently met and received a presentation from the developers behind a proposed solar energy farm at Craig Y Perthi near Uskmouth power station. Solar power, I'm sure you know better than anyone, is currently one of the cheapest forms of energy generation, and with schemes like Craig Y Perthi solar farm in the pipeline, there is a real potential for solar energy to address not just our energy demands, but also provide support for people suffering with high energy bills at present. So, Minister, can you advise us here in the Chamber today and beyond what progress is being made, specifically, on increasing the number of solar photovoltaic projects here in Wales? Thank you.

Thank you, Natasha. Obviously, I won't comment on individual projects because I'm the planning Minister as well, so I'll make some general remarks about that.

Quite clearly, we do want solar to come forward, alongside a raft of other things in the renewable energy market. What we want is to get as many different outcomes from energy projects as possible. So, we're particularly interested in solar that doesn't take up good agricultural land, solar that's placed on land that doesn't have high-grade agriculture. We are hoping that the solar farms will take into account potential for co-located biodiversity or tree planting. There are some excellent examples around Wales. The panels aren't necessarily fixed—they can be raised from the ground, they can be at different angels, they can even move and all the rest of it. So, in general, we're trying to encourage as much solar as possible in the right place. We're trying to discourage it from the wrong place, as we do with all other energy projects as well, and we're asking the developers to tell us a whole range of things as they bring the schemes forward, including how much energy they'll generate, obviously, how it would connect into the grid, or whether it's a closed-loop system.

There's a great one down in, I think, my colleague Rebecca Evans's constituency, or I might be wrong, as it might be in my colleague Mike Hedges’s constituency, but it powers Morriston Hospital, and that's a closed-loop system. Is it yours?

Yes.

I wasn't quite sure where the edge was there. It's an excellent project, and one of the things we discussed when we were there—I had the great privilege of opening it, so it's now powering the hospital, helping with their energy and carbon footprint—but one of the big things about it is that it has a hedges-and-edges project around the edge for trees, and it's underplanted with a biodiverse meadow. What's not to like?

So, the short answer is, 'The more things it can bring forward at the same time and the space it can occupy that can't be occupied by other beneficial uses, the better', and then we can get the projects consented.

In addition to the laudable target to achieve 70 per cent of Wales's electricity demand from renewable sources by 2030, of course by 2035 we're aiming for 100 per cent renewable generation. But we also have to find, and it's within your plans there, a fivefold increase in electricity generation from those renewable sources by 2050. It's an enormous challenge, but it's a great opportunity, particularly if we can make sure that communities have a stake in this, and also local government, our great municipalities, and also that the Welsh Government has a stake in this as well. Because there is the size of the challenge, but what an opportunity, finally, to get all of us involved in this as well. So, how are we going to take that forward, both at a community level but also at a Welsh Government and a national level?

Thank you, Huw. Llywydd, I'm in danger of needing to give an hour's lecture as the answer to every one of these questions. I won't try to your patience too much. Suffice to say, Huw, we've already announced that we'll make a state-owned energy development company. Part of the point of that is to build exemplar sites with a lot of community ownership and to exploit the resources we already have. We've worked very closely with the Crown Estate to bring forward the floating wind in the Celtic sea and the fixed wind off our north coast. That alone is a 2 GW opportunity immediately, with much more to come. The big issue for us is grid. We're having a discussion with the grid on the new holistic network design, which I think will bring forward the opportunity for a large number of small projects right across Wales, including the 'homes as power stations' type thing that we look forward to seeing. Great restraint there, Llywydd—I hope you agree.

I appreciate it.