Speeches by Billington.

“Those are things that NESO and the DNOs must do.”

“Dan, what do you think needs to change in the rules to enable local stakeholders to meet this target?”

“I am also interested in the argument that if it is publicly owned land, it should be used for public purposes. That is one of the reasons why you build social housing on it and so on. I am just thinking about whether that is a way of having a material consideration that this is publicly owned land, we are not selling i…”

“Can I follow up on that? I am interested in the identity and nature of the owner. If it were publicly owned land, for example by the local authority, would that make a difference?”

“Telling people who are interested in energy to spend more time talking to people—I would suggest it might be better to change a rule rather than to try to change people’s personalities.”

“Do we need to change the rules?”

“Can I just follow up? Bearing in mind that we have NESO, which is a national body; we have National Grid, which is a privately owned but national body; and we have distribution network operators across the country whose job it is to keep those wires going—I could go on—what are the responsibilities of those organisatio…”

“Forgive me, Dan; we are talking about November 2025. We have Clean Power 2030, 8 GW. Normally, I am the biggest social justice warrior on this panel— I know I have competition, and I am pleased that Lizzi is here to fight that corner as a new member—and I am very keen to make sure that this is something that is availab…”

“I know that you were all present at the previous session. Bearing in mind what evidence we heard then, what prospects do you think we have of achieving the 8 GW of community energy by 2030?”

“Forgive me; I will ask one last question on that. Community energy advocates spend quite a lot of time saying, “We are all unique and special and different” and then, funnily enough, want something big and co-ordinated that is consistent for everybody, “and we want to achieve 8 GW, but we don’t want to be told to do it…”

“What is already changing? What are you seeing that this Government are doing? Bearing in mind they have made a target of 8 GW and have the Clean Power 2030 target, what do you already see changing that is making your life easier to contribute to that 8 GW?”

“Do you need to obligate them to do things?”

“You are not going to get it from DNOs?”

“That could also be GB Energy, couldn’t it?”

“And do the energy derisking and underwriting projects?”

“That is the paragraph you mentioned, yes?”

“Which are the barriers you would take away?”

“It is 12 November 2025, so we have less than five years to get 8 GW of community energy power on to the system. What is your honest assessment of our prospects of being able to do that under the current system?”

“Let’s go on to the barriers. How long does it normally take to get a community energy project online?”

“That would be a problem if you just gave it to the energy nerds, for example, who do not think about how many people there are, or you forgot to factor in the grid capacity, but grid capacity is pretty crucial for a local area energy plan, isn’t it?”