Alison Thewliss – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison Thewliss on 2016-04-08.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what plans she has to address market barriers to investment in large-scale and distributed electricity storage technologies.

Andrea Leadsom

A key objective of our £20m energy storage innovation programme is to strengthen investor confidence in energy storage at all scales. Overall, more than £80m of public sector controlled support has been committed to energy storage research, development and demonstration activities since 2012. This R&D activity has helped to raise the profile of storage and to demonstrate its capabilities to potential investors. In addition, my rt. hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer allocated at least £50m innovation funding to smart technologies, including storage, in the recent Budget.

The National Infrastructure Commission published a report, Smart Power, earlier in March. This included a recommendation to review the regulatory and legal status of storage and remove outdated barriers. The Department will implement this recommendation in full. We intend to publish a call for evidence on a smart systems route map, including storage, shortly.