Yes, it is hard to believe, colleagues.
By that time, a whole generation of children will have grown up and left home in the community of Diptford, so 25 years does not sound very temporary. Furthermore,
who will be responsible for decommissioning? What is to prevent these industrial wastelands from becoming tomorrow’s brownfield sites? That is another area I hope the Minister will address in summing up.
These developments have little to do with saving the planet; they are entirely about profit. The subsidies go to a tiny number of people. When I speak at public meetings, people who are in fuel poverty often ask why they are paying more to subsidise people who can afford the up-front costs of some of these developments. Indeed, these people might even have the entire cost—often including the entire planning cost—paid for them. As a result, literally nothing needs to be paid for by the person who will then have all the profit from the project.
As the Minister will know, there are many community-owned projects, and he will be aware of TRESOC—the Totnes Renewable Energy Society—in my constituency. I was proud to open its first community-owned array, which is on the roof of the local general practitioners. That is the kind of place these projects need to be. TRESOC has 502 members, who share the dividends. The point, however, is that people have to be able to afford the shares in the first place, so that automatically excludes those in fuel poverty. Will the Minister put some flesh on the bones as regards subsidies, because there are probably a lot of misunderstandings about how they operate and who benefits from them?
Will the Minister also review the system for distributing profits, so that those who suffer loss of amenity—particularly those in fuel poverty—can directly benefit from a reduction in their fuel bills? When I met AEE, it told me that Diptford residents could all benefit from the project because they could have a discount from the supplier, but only from a more expensive supplier, so it was no discount at all. That is what is fuelling a lot of the resentment about these projects.
In a recent speech, the Minister stated his ambition to have 20 GW of solar, but given the impact the 1.7 GW I mentioned will have, I hope that he will tell us, in summing up, how he will make sure that future solar, which we all feel enthusiastic about, is rolled out through community projects and brought up to scale, and that community-owned projects are supported.
Will the Minister also touch on how the national grid will cope? Another problem is that solar arrays function best at times such as this—in the middle of hot, sunny days in the middle of summer. However, peak demand will be on winter evenings, when these arrays have little, if any, input into the grid. I know they still function on cloudy days, but at times of peak demand—on dark winter evenings—they will be of no benefit at all. Another issue is that when they are functioning best—when demand is at its lowest—we also have background forms of energy generation, such as nuclear, which cannot be turned off. At the moment, our grid does not have the capacity to do that.