4. How is the Welsh Government supporting the renewable energy industry? OQ59277

I thank Sam Kurtz for that. Supporting the supply chain, co-ordinating investment in grids and ports infrastructure and setting up a publicly owned renewable developer are some of the actions we are taking to support the renewable energy industry in Wales. 

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending a round-table with the south Wales industrial cluster as they launched their decarbonisation plan. While at the meeting, I was delighted to be shown a tweet from your Twitter account, First Minister, celebrating consent being given for Blue Gem Wind's Erebus project off the south Pembrokeshire coast. Floating offshore wind, this joint venture between Total and Simply Blue Energy, will firmly set Wales on a path to net zero.

At the same round-table discussion, it was said that a Celtic free port would turbocharge the industry's journey to net zero while also securing and generating thousands of extra jobs. But with an announcement due imminently, I do wish to pivot and focus slightly elsewhere.

So, to achieve our net-zero ambition, industry must deploy the use of blue hydrogen in a limited and short-term manner. It is through optimising blue hydrogen creation that we can provide the industry with a critical stepping stone towards net zero, and without it, we risk failure. So, given this, what assurances can the Welsh Government give stakeholders that blue hydrogen as a transition is a route to net zero that this Government is willing to support? Diolch.

Well, Llywydd, I thank Sam Kurtz for those further questions. I thank him for drawing attention to the fact that the Erebus windfarm application has been approved now through all the processes here in Wales. It's a very important development and one that demonstrates that we have been able to use the streamlined and effective application process we now have in Wales to reach that outcome, while at the same time making sure that there are proper and robust protections for that very fragile environment that is the sea that surrounds us.

I won’t say anything on the free port; the Member was quite right about that, Llywydd.

As far as blue hydrogen and green hydrogen are concerned, we want to get a position where green hydrogen is deployable here in Wales on the scale we will need it for the future. Do we see any part for blue hydrogen in that transition way? Well, we do. But we want it to be as limited as it can be, and very clearly in the stepping-stone way that Sam Kurtz has set out this afternoon. It does have a part to play, but it’s not the destination we need to be at.

First Minister, if a local authority who have their pensions funds invested in a particular energy generation company were to receive a request from that company for a development in their area, do you feel that there would be a conflict of interest in such a scenario? Because clearly, if there were a proposal, a project or infrastructure where the local authority is part of the decision for that to go ahead, that would bring benefit to the pension funds of that local authority. Is there a risk to the impartiality of that process in your view?

Well, I haven’t had an opportunity to grasp that specific point that Llyr Gruffydd has made, Llywydd, so I’d better look at what is in the Record this afternoon. We do want to—. I’ve had a meeting with Jack Sargeant just a few weeks ago to look at how we can enable local authorities with their pension funds to invest in those things that are going to be part of the long-term response here in Wales.

So, in general, I think that it is something important to draw those funds into the infrastructure and other things, such as renewable energy. But, on the specific point, I’d better look again at what the Member said and come back to him.

I too was at the south Wales industrial cluster meeting that was held in the Millennium Stadium in my constituency, and a really interesting meeting it was, with lots of really important people there.

However, I want to just ask about a slightly different route to achieving net zero, which is the increasing demand for renewable energy in our homes. Forty per cent of houses in Wales are owned outright, with no mortgage, either by the people who live in them or by landlords who rent them out. So, what strategy is the Government using to appeal to them to invest in renewables now, to do the right thing for the climate, fix the holes in their pockets, and increase the value of their properties? What’s not to like as a way of kick starting demand for retrofitting measures in the private housing sector?

Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree with the general point that Jenny Rathbone is making. She will know that it is a confusing picture that faces the individual householder in this area, because there is an ongoing and sometimes a rather polarised debate on what the future of domestic heating should be. On the one hand, there are experiments going on and we’re working with the UK Government on that, about the role that hydrogen might play in that, and yet there is also evidence that suggests that hydrogen won’t have a widespread use in domestic heating, and that debate is holding up some decisions on the gas grid and on electrification. What I think is clear is that we will need—and we are funding, indeed, as a Government—local area energy plans that will go down to an assessment at a street by street level, so that there will be better information for householders on which heat solutions will work best for them.

There'll be areas where heat pumps are the answer, and some areas in which it may—and I think it's definitely a question mark, but may—be that hybrid solutions closest to sources of hydrogen may also have a part to play. The Minister intends to publish the consultation on a heat strategy, which will draw on all of this and seek to help resolve some of those debates so that, when the individual consumer has a clearer idea of what they can do in the most effective way in their particular property, they will have a less confused policy background to draw on and then can get on and make the investments to which Jenny Rathbone has referred.