Lords Committee looks at regulator's role in ensuring electricity resilience
The Lords Science and Technology Committee, investigating electricity supply in the UK, will hear firstly from a panel of energy experts and secondly from the regulator, Ofgem, on Tuesday 13 January.
The Committee's evidence session will turn the spotlight on areas such as the effectiveness of government policies, where responsibility for electricity resilience lies, and the cost of decarbonisation of electricity generation.
Evidence will be heard at 10.40am from Dr John Constable, Director, Renewable Energy Foundation; Rupert Darwall, author of the REFORM publication, How to run a country: energy policy and the return of the state; and Dr Robert Gross, Reader in Energy Policy and Technology, Imperial College London.
Then at approximately 11.40am the Committee will hear from Rachel Fletcher, Senior Partner for Markets, Ofgem, and Maxine Frerk, Senior Partner for Smarter Grids & Governance: Distribution, Ofgem.
Questions that the Committee will put to the witnesses include:
- How effective are the government's policies at ensuring resilient electricity supply?
- What about steps being taken by Ofgem and National Grid in this area?
- How much is decarbonisation of electricity generation going to cost?
- What lessons have been learned from last Christmas's outages?
- Is there a need for a so-called Systems Architect to help coordinate transition to a low carbon electricity system?
The session will be webcast at www.parliamentlive.tv and is also open to the public. Journalists wishing to attend should go to Parliament's Cromwell Green Entrance and should allow time for security screening.
