 The final item of business today is a member's business debate on motion number 1440 in the name of Mike McKenzie on the energy storage network. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would be grateful if those members who would like to contribute could press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Mike McKenzie to open the debate. Seven minutes, please, Mr McKenzie. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm pleased to have secured this debate in order to shine a light on energy storage, because energy storage is often a forgotten aspect of our energy system, and it's sometimes an undervalued part of our energy system, and yet energy storage is a fundamental and critical part of our energy system. I'm grateful to Scottish Renewables for their report on energy storage, The Basics, because I've been perhaps as guilty as anyone in not previously properly considering and giving due prominence to the important matter of energy storage. Before I continue, I'd like to do something that I don't believe I've ever done before in this chamber. Indeed, it's something that I may never do again. I want to pay a tribute to a Labour politician. I want to pay a tribute to the late, great Labour Secretary of State, Tom Johnston, because it was Tom Johnston who brought hydro-power to the Highlands and Islands, bringing into being both hydro-electricity generation and pump storage on a scale that we've not since really matched. In doing so, he left us a legacy that continues to benefit the Highlands and Islands to this day. As wisdom, he recognised that what would benefit the Highlands and Islands would also benefit Scotland. Michael Russell I think that the member would be useful for the member to know that the admiration for Tom Johnston spreads across this chamber. I seem to remember that the report of Tom Johnston was hanging in Bute House when the previous First Minister was there. The report of Tom Johnston is the precursor of at least part of the type of Scotland that we'd like to see. Mike McKenzie Yes, I'm very grateful to Mr Russell for that information. I hadn't realised his portrait was in Bute House. In Tom Johnston's wisdom, he recognised that what would benefit the Highlands and Islands would also benefit Scotland. In his wisdom, he recognised that what would benefit Scotland would also benefit the rest of the UK. It's this kind of wisdom that's quite evidently so lacking in today's unionist politicians. It's sometimes forgotten that Tom Johnston also introduced storage heaters, storing energy at times of low demand, bringing affordable, convenient heating to the Highlands and Islands on a significant scale, utilising energy that would otherwise be wasted by storing it at the household level. I mention this to demonstrate that, even without renewable energy generation, energy storage was and is both necessary and worthwhile. It's used to help balance the peaks and troughs of demand and supply. Alex Salmond Tom Johnston also tried to exterminate the Scotch's midge, but that was less successful. The point that I was going to make was that he took the emergency legislation to enable the hydroelectric board, as it became, to do its work, through all its procedures in, I think, 10 days in the House of Commons. There might be a lesson for us all there. Mike McKenzie I'm very grateful to Mr Salmond for that further information. Like midges, a lot of small Scotsmen are equally difficult to exterminate. It's used to provide a degree of energy security. The pump storage facility at Cruchin provides that initial black-start power to jump-start the system in the event of a system-wide failure. With the advent and all the possibilities and opportunities of renewable energy, energy storage is obviously also even more critical. The critics of wind energy often quote the self-evident fact that the wind doesn't blow all the time, although they may not have talked to some of my constituents in Tyree. That is a backwards-looking, ladi-view of centralised energy production that fails to recognise that this energy system is already failing us. The evidence for this failure is in high energy costs, with fuel poverty across Scotland running at over 30 per cent and over 50 per cent now in some of our islands. The evidence for this failure is in spare capacity generation now in all time and dangerous law, according to National Grid, of only 1.2 per cent. The evidence for this failure is in the UK Government's enormous subsidy for the untried and untested EPR reactor at Hinkley Point, and in their desperation having to bribe the Chinese to invest in this risky venture. The solution to this problem, on the way forward, is to embrace the possibility of clean green renewable energy generation, and Scotland is the possibility of generating many times our own energy requirements. The variety of storage solutions is limited only by our ingenuity and by our extraordinary capabilities for technological innovation, something we Scots have been good at for generations. There is no single magic bullet. Pumped storage, hydrogen, flyhales, ever-cliverer and bigger batteries, compressed air, electric vehicles and other new and emerging technologies all offer exciting energy storage solutions. There are a number of reasons why we must increase both our renewable energy generation and in tandem our energy storage capability. We need to do so to meet our climate change targets. We need to do so because as world energy demand continues to rise, we need to increase our energy security. We need to do so because we have a huge competitive advantage in these technologies and therefore a huge economic opportunity, both at home in capturing this enormous resource and abroad in exporting our skills and the technologies that we develop. Technologies and skills that we are already well ahead of the rest of the world. The only missing and greeting in bringing all this to fruition is the lack of political will from the UK Government. We need to recognise, as Tom Johnson did, that what is good for Scotland can also be good for the rest of the UK. As we consider our constitutional future, we need to remember that the aim of constitutional change is to enable the delivery of good government. An essential part of good government lies in enabling us to capture our economic opportunities, especially in sectors such as energy where we have such a huge competitive advantage. We have already stood by and watched as much of our oil wealth was squandered. It would be a tragedy if we were forced to watch the same thing happen to our renewable energy opportunity. Many thanks. We now turn to the open debate speeches of Four Minutes, please. Sarah Boyack Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I kick off by thanking and congratulating Mike Mackenzie for securing this debate tonight? It might not look like the most exciting debate we have this week, but I would argue that it is probably one of the most important that we debate in the Parliament. I welcome the fact that Mike has put it on the agenda for us tonight. The challenges that he mentioned fuel poverty, 39 per cent of our households, the missing climate targets, the challenge on meeting our electricity from renewables targets, the stalling in the transformation that we need across our economy, partly due, as Mike Mackenzie said, to the chopping and changing investment and regulatory framework from the UK Government and the intermittent challenge. We are now beginning to power ahead with lots of different levels and scales in terms of renewables, particularly wind renewables, but we have not got the grid, we have not got the storage back up to really maximise on that economic and that energy opportunity. We have huge challenges, but one of the key areas that I would agree with Mike Mackenzie on is that we now have technologies, we have now invented technologies that can fix many of those challenges, that can help us to deliver security of supply, that can help us to use the energy that we are currently wasting because we are not able to store it. For that reason, I particularly welcome the research that has been done and the briefings that we have been presented with tonight from WWF and Scottish Renewables. Those new technologies are key to our economic and our climate future in Scotland. It is key to a green energy transition with jobs, affordable heat and energy and a climate friendly energy network. There has to be no one solution, no one-size-fits-all. That plays to the Highlands and Islands contribution, it plays to villages, it plays to towns and it also plays to cities. We will all have different opportunities in terms of the geography and the local circumstances, but what we need is to look at the range of technologies in terms of energy and heat storage that are now available and work out what is best in all those areas. The ambition that we had in post-war Labour Government was about the mix of regulation, about the mix of key partners and crucially looking at the huge opportunity from large hydro. Now we have many more opportunities with community hydro schemes that are now coming back into vogue, and they have a particular opportunity because they can be community-owned and the benefits come to the communities. There are other technologies that we need to look at, battery technology. I have seen on egg fantastic opportunities that they have been able to develop using battery technology, but as the years go by, by the time we hit 2020-25, we need to have cars, bikes, buses and vehicles using battery storage in terms of electricity. That will begin to transform how we use the electricity that is being produced but is not being used. Hydrogen fuel cells also have huge and exciting potential. One of the opportunities that are currently being pursued is at a community level. Particularly some of the work that has been done in the northern Isles is very exciting. We need to make sure that that begins to roll out right across the economy. The final point that I want to end on is thermal storage. It is probably not the most exciting end of this, but it is potentially the most transformational. Let's go back to the opening statistic of 39 per cent of our households in fuel poverty, and also those in the western Isles in extreme fuel poverty—district heating opportunities, district heating storage, such as the work that has been done by Star Energy from Glasgow in Norway. Look at the key issue of how we make this work properly. Edinburgh University is beginning to lead the way. It is not just renewables news, it is also about low and zero carbon technologies. It is using a variety of different renewables and different heat technologies and bringing them together. The proposals at Edinburgh University have already generated savings of £1.5 million a year and reduced CO2 emissions. The challenge is how to make those projects work across the country. Our Scandinavian neighbours have some of the solutions. It is about using new developments through support from grants and through planning approaches, but it is also about making sure that the public sector works with the private sector to bring this about. I think that it is really, really exciting. It was right to kick off with the vision of Tom Johnson. We need that now in this Parliament. No pressure, minister. I hope that we will get some of that in your concluding remarks tonight. Vision, ambition, the key steps to make the changes that we need. We are up for that challenge in Scottish Labour. Let's work together to deliver on that. Thank you. I call John McAlpine to be followed by Alex Johnson. Can I too congratulate my friend Mike Mackenzie on securing this important and timely debate? I was delighted to host an event in Parliament with Harriet Watt University on their energy academy last year. During that event, we heard of the wide variety of technological storage solutions being researched by the university's talented team. Some of them were mentioned by Mike Mackenzie and Sarah Boyack in their speech. This is no academic subject. Last week, we saw the very practical consequences of not investing in energy storage. We are repeatedly told that blackouts are the stuff of science fiction, Presiding Officer. Last week, they nearly became a cold reality with emphasis on cold. National Grid had to issue an emergency request for electricity due to an unexpected spike in demand. Its winter outlook report revealed capacity margins, as Mr Mackenzie mentioned, as low as 1.2 per cent. The safe level is 5 per cent and a capacity margin, Presiding Officer, is the average amount of extra electricity available compared to peak winter demand, so 1.2 per cent is worryingly low. I was very pleased to hear that Mr Ewing had written to the minister who is responsible for the Samba Rud at UK level to warn her against her complacency in this matter. UK energy policy, which Ms Rudd presides over, discriminates against Scottish renewables. That is well known. It discriminates against generators like Long Gannot, which is forced to close early because of unfair transmission charges. That is well known. What is not so well known is how it discriminates against storage technology, another area in which Scotland can lead. That discrimination, as Mr Mackenzie mentioned, contributes not just to damage to Scotland but to supply issues right across the UK. As the WWF briefing today says clearly, the current UK energy market framework does not provide an adequate revenue stream for large storage projects and there are no targeted support mechanisms. At this point, it has been repeated to the energy committee by other experts and by the generators themselves, notably Scottish Power and SSE. We have two shovel-ready projects that are being held up by the UK Government's policy failure on storage. They are the Cruich and Extension, which is included in the NPF 3 for Scotland as a nationally important piece of infrastructure, as well as the Coir glass by Loch Loughy. Between those two projects would bring pumped storage capacity in Scotland to well over 2 gigawatts by 2030. To put that into context, currently in Britain there is around 3.24 gigawatt capacity of storage, so those two projects alone would make a significant contribution. They still would not bring us anywhere near Germany, which already has 7 gigawatts of storage and Spain with 8 gigawatts and Japan with 25 gigawatts. Storage gives you more flexibility, and that is what the country understands. It is why expert witnesses have told the committee and it is what the mechanical engineers said last year in their very important report on the subject. There is a fine art in managing supply and demand when it comes to electricity. The national grid has been portforced to be very large sums of money when it fails to balance supply and demand just to maintain some kind of equilibrium. We are always hearing about the constraint payments to wind farms, which we all accept are intermittent, but it is not just renewable energy generators who receive those payments. They go to power stations as well. For example, in 2012 and 2013, the overall constraint payment paid by national grid was £170 million, but for wind it was £7 million. Now the public, with some degree of alarm, is becoming aware of something called demand-side balancing reserve in which national grid pays large industrial customers not to produce power. Payments here also run into millions and are set to increase, although there seems to be considerable secrecy around what they actually are. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom plans to address the crisis by spending billions, doubling into connectors with the continent and investing in nuclear energy. It would really be so much easier and cheaper to allow Scotland to develop its strengths in renewable energy and storage potential, but only this week we will learn the amber rod while implementing policies that cut off investment to Scotland's renewable projects and are planning to pay to import renewable energy. The UK Government and the regulator of GEM are presiding over a system in which consumers are paying through the nose for a system that could have been invented by Lewis Carroll. It is quite simply absurd. One week, we are paying firms to switch off. The next week, we are paying astronomical amounts to keep the lights on. During last week's crisis, the grid paid some generators £2,500 per megawatt hour when it is normally £50. Investing in energy's story to overcome the issue of intermittent and ensure a smooth supply of green energy when we need it makes a lot more sense, and I very much hope that the UK Government will soon see sense on this matter. I now have to ask members if they could try to keep to four minutes please, and even at that the number of members who still wish to speak in the debate means that I am minded to accept a motion from Mike Mackenzie under rule 8.14.3 that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Mr Mackenzie. Happy to move that motion. Many thanks. Is that agreed? Thank you. I now call Alex Johnson to be followed by David Torrance. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. One of the first things I was ever taught in a science class was that energy can never be created or destroyed. You can only change its form. That, of course, is a lesson that we should all take to heart when we are thinking about the need to store energy. Because too often we go for the high-tech solution when, in fact, low-tech is the right way to go. Many people remember how conditions in some areas of Africa were transformed when Trevor Bayless had the genius idea of putting a clockwork mechanism on a radio. Simple technology, ancient technology in some kind of some kind, which was put together and served a modern function. For that reason, we should always be careful not to go for the high-tech solution when the low-tech solution will deliver. If we look at the solutions to energy storage that we have available to us, it has already been said by a number of people that pump storage, hydro, is the way to go. We have certain difficulties in Scotland. Our mountains are not as high as they are in Norway or in the Urals. The volume of water available is not as great as some other countries would be able to achieve. However, the opportunity to use surplus electricity at low cost to pump water up a hill so that it can let it back down through the turbines at a time when there is demand and you can sell that electricity at a much higher price is a tremendous business model. We should always remember that, regardless of what government can or cannot do, that business model is one that already pays handsomly to the company that operates that pump storage scheme. We should seek wherever we can to extend that technology, because virtually all of our current hydro schemes would have some suitability for pump storage. However, let us look at some of that—yes, indeed. Does the member agree with me that that sort of pump storage that I see on the Fault of Clyde as well and is across Scotland is a much better model than the centralised nuclear energy model, which the member's party is arguing for with the very expensive waste issue that is involved with that? Alex Joyce. I perhaps have time to get on to the subject of diversity. I believe in diversity of energy sources. The one other thing that I wanted to talk about in terms of low technology is something that is contained within the report, and that is compressed air or liquefied air. I think that we have a great deal to learn from work that has been done particularly in India relating to the provision of cars that are powered by liquid air. It is a wonderful way of storing energy, which is almost like a spring, but it can achieve great results. In the last minute available to me, I would like to explain a little bit about how our electricity system works. Our electricity is generated at 50 cycles per second, and you can test the load on the system at any moment from any socket in any wall. You simply check the rate at which the current is oscillating, and if it deviates more than a few fractions of a percent above or below that 50 cycles per second, someone in a control room somewhere is panicking trying to produce extra capacity or short capacity down. As we move towards a system that is more environmentally based, it is vital that we have means for that capacity to be changed. That is why, yes indeed, generators, including wind turbines, are being paid to switch off because their value is greater if held in reserve than it is if simply used to displace something else. The fact is that if we put all our eggs in one basket in any form of energy production, we put the continuity of our supply at risk. That is why, as I said earlier in response to an intervention, I will always campaign for diversity in our energy sources because only through diversity can we have the consistency required to make sure that when you flick that switch, the power comes on its own. If we fail to be diverse in our sourcing of energy, then we run a much greater risk that it may not. I thank Mike McKenzie for not being able to stay till the end of the debate. I thank Mike McKenzie for bringing this motion before Parliament, as I think it addresses an interesting important factor in Scotland's energy future. All of us here today know that the Scottish Government has set progressive targets and introduced initiatives to boost Scotland's renewable energy sector. For example, Scotland now meets more than 50 per cent of its electricity needs through power from renewable sources. By 2020, we hope to supply 100 per cent of our electricity demands from renewable sources and we will continue to work towards that goal. To help our energy industry to grow, however, we need to invest in new and developing technologies. I believe that we need to look at energy storage in particular, which is a solution to one of our renewable energy sector's biggest problems. In many cases, excess energy generated by popular renewable sources, such as wind turbines, is lost because it cannot be stored effectively. Therefore, I am proud to join my colleagues in support of the Scottish Renewables and its publication, Energy Storage, The Basics, which showcases some of the most successful new storage technologies in Scotland. New storage technology will allow us to harness the maximum amount of energy to be used and to fuel our country through renewable sources any time, not just when turbines are turning or the sun is shining. As Mike McKenzie rightly points out, the energy storage industry alone will be worth roughly £20 billion globally by 2022. It is essential that Scotland develops a storage energy sector, thereby assuring a place for itself in this growing global market. The continued development of efficient energy storage technology is particularly important to me, as the energy sector drives a great deal of industry in my constituency in Cercodi. I would therefore like to focus today on one of the types of energy storage specified in the constituency, hydrogen fuel cells. I am pleased to see that Scottish Renewables highlighted the work that has been carried out by hydrogen offices in the energy part 5 located in Meffel. As the case study for the expansion of hydrogen fuel storage, the hydrogen office was founded in 2011 with funding for Scottish Renewables and other local energy-aware organisations with a goal of promoting efficient renewable energy, especially through hydrogen power. The hydrogen office now converts any excess energy produced by a turbine into hydrogen gas, which is stored in a high-pressure stainless steel tank. Fuel can be transferred to a 10-kilowatt fuel cell and used to power the hydrogen office at the energy part at up to 80 per cent efficiency when the wind turbine does not provide enough real-time electricity to the facility. The fuel cell, when full, can power the hydrogen office for up to two weeks. Perhaps the best benefit of using hydrogen to power the office is the fact that only by-product of the process is water. By using hydrogen power, the office has eliminated its carbon emissions entirely. I would also like to reinforce for the chamber that hydrogen and fuel storage is not just a technology feasible only for large-cares facilities. The hydrogen office's parent organisation, Bright Green Hydrogen, has created a pilot programme based in Leithmouth for the use of hydrogen fuel cars in vehicles. A fleet of 20 electric cars and vans plus two bin lorries use hydrogen fuel to continually charge their batteries, allowing the car to run for up to 200 miles without stopping. Presiding Officer, in closing, I would like to say that the hydrogen office is only one venture in the grand scheme of Scotland's energy needs. However, its success shows us that hydrogen fuel cells and the new energy storage technologies in general have an increasingly important place to pay in Scotland's energy industry. The expansion of hydrogen fuel cells technology into smaller projects such as power and cars will help Scotland to transition to an increased reliance on renewable sources. Converting the renewable energy to hydrogen gas could replace petrol, coal and natural gas in the future. Eliminating Scotland's need for a non-reuval source of energy entirely. I am proud to say that the organisation with my constituency has been at the forefront of developing this new technology. I know that it will soon be able to apply for new innovations across Scotland. I congratulate Mike McKenzie on securing this important debate and joining him in acknowledging and welcoming the work done by Scottish Renewables through the launch of its new storage network and the publication of energy storage basics. As has been said, we debate the issue of energy in this Parliament on a pretty regular basis, invariably the focus is on generation, usually electricity generation rather than the wider contribution of heat and transport. In turn, that has led to claims that demand reduction in energy efficiency is the Cinderella of the energy debate. However, I am not sure that energy storage does not have a more compelling claim to this dubious honour. Invariably, it is a postscript to a speech here and there. It is, apparently, afterthought worthy of acknowledgement but no real serious discussion in the context of the overall energy debate. That is a failing on our part, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I am pleased that we have an opportunity this afternoon all the way to brief one to begin to redress the balance and give storage its proper place. Storage is, as others have said, absolutely central to the achievement or renewable energy ambitions. As we strive to meet ever more challenging targets on route to decarbonising our energy system, storage solutions will play an ever more critical role—a point emphasised strongly by WWF in its briefing for today's debate. I also quite legitimately argue that the UK energy market does not provide an adequate funding system for storage projects. That should be a priority for development in the future. That, to be fair, has been a failing of successive Governments both north and south of the border, but it is one that we can ill afford to see continue. That is not to say that we are operating from a standing start. Scottish Renewables has helped to set out a range of activity that is already under way in Scotland. From the long-standing pump-water storage operations at Cruich in a direct legacy of Tom Johnson, who has rightly been eulogised by many speakers earlier in this debate, to the more recent project in my own Orkney constituency, where collaboration between Shept and Mitsubishi has seen the UK's first large-scale battery connected to help ease good constraints and allow for more renewable generation. I am also excited by the progress of the surf and turf initiative on AD, deploying renewables to generate hydrogen, which is then used to provide electricity for ferries when tied up in the harbour. Those are examples that really underscore the potential and the fundamental importance of storage in allowing us to connect more renewables capacity, deliver security of supply and empowering communities and consumers. Perhaps one of the reasons that there has been a tendency to overlook the contribution that storage can and must play in our efforts to decarbonise our energy system is the sheer range of storage types, the varying scale and stage of development. Herriot, what universities energy academy referred to early illustrates the point well, explaining that, quote, heat and electricity storage will be required at timescales from seconds to years and from small battery scale to grid level solutions. I was interested to read about the partnership approach being taken by the academy, bringing together different disciplines and facilitating collaboration across industries, research centres and other organisations. After the visit to Orkney last week by Herriot Watt's new principal, Professor Richard Williams, I hope that there is more that the team at ICIT can contribute to this work in conjunction with the world-class cluster of renewable energy related businesses to be found in Orkney. Of particular interest is the academy's work on demand management systems, which could reduce the price of electricity and the use of virtual power plants to integrate renewable energy resources and demand to remote communities. As we come to rely increasingly on renewable energy, we need to recognise that this reliance rests heavily on the flexibility and security that only storage solutions can provide. WWF calls on all political parties to embrace that vision. It is one that Scottish Liberal Democrats do. It is time that Cinderella Storage got her invitation to the green energy ball. I again want to thank Mike McKenzie for bringing this important debate to us. I would also like to thank him for the history lesson about Tom Johnson and to reflect briefly that I have a family connection with that as well. My grandfather was one of the civil engineers who did some of the heavy lifting in the work that was done on hydroelectric power stations across Scotland in times past. We all know that renewable energy is going to be intermittent. It's not just that the wind doesn't always blow. Of course, tides come and go, but there are very long slack periods in between. So storage is something which I think we would readily recognise as being part of a power system. I suspect that most of us actually have been as MSPs at briefings from the national grid. So we will know fine well that they are used to the idea of having to buy spare capacity into paying over the odds necessarily for that at the peak. They also have bought themselves opportunities to reduce demand, as has been pointed out, and Joe McElpine commented on that. I do not recall the grid ever actually talking about storage in any of our briefings, or if they have then it really was very much the Cinderella, so it's obviously been somewhat off their radar as well, but it's going to have to come on it partly for the reasons that members have already mentioned, which I won't repeat, but partly because of a point which I don't think has yet been mentioned, which is that whilst we've all spent our time talking about renewable electricity generation, the biggest part of our energy demand is heat, both domestic and business, and if we are to use renewable energy to meet the heat demand, then we're going to have to generate a great deal more electricity, but we're also going to have to get it to where that heating is required, and this is the crucial bit, make sure that it's available at the point where the heating is actually required as well, which might well be in the evenings and overnight rather than during the day when it might have been generated. So storage is actually a crucial part of simply getting the heat balance across Scotland in connection with renewables. Now we've again, we've always known that standard generating power stations, waste heat, we've all seen these enormous cooling towers and wondered why they were there where the laws of thermodynamics demanded that they had to be there, but if those power stations had been built in the middle of our big cities then we wouldn't have needed the cooling towers, we could actually have used that waste heat to warm up our houses and district heating systems have been known in various places to do that, which brings me to the next point, Presiding Officer, which is that we really should be storing heat, sorry, storing energy where it will be useful as heat because many of the storage systems themselves generate waste heat and if you can use that waste heat for district heating then that must actually be far more efficient in overall energy terms. Now if we can just take energy out of the sky by wind turbines then actually the cost of that energy is energy isn't terribly great but given that we actually have to put enormous amounts of capital both into the ground and then into the wires that move the energy around, we do want efficient systems and that's why it is important that we get our storage in the right place, it needs to be distributed but it does mean that compressed air, liquid air and flywheel storage which are themselves relatively inefficient if put in the right place can actually become more efficient because the waste is always heat and if you can collect that heat and put it into storage into a district heating system then it ceases being wasted heat and becomes useful heat. So that's the point which in all of this adds to the complexity of what's already a complex enough problem and I'm very grateful to Mike Mackenzie again for bringing that before us. Many thanks and I now call Stewart Stevenson. Thank you Presiding Officer. Others have referred to Tom Johnson but there's one key aspiration that Tom Johnson had that has not yet been referred to. He imagined that with the building of hydroelectric schemes we would get to a position where no charge was made for the electricity that was supplied because there was no cost in the energy source from which it came. Now that sounds like fantasy except that it actually is now happening. It's happening in Texas and I particularly in reading The New York Times on Sunday spotted the TXU energy of Texas and Texas is the state in the United States with the highest proportion of wind energy installed. Wind energy is now supplying to its customers between 9 o'clock at night and 6 o'clock in the morning all the electricity that they can use at no charge whatsoever. So there is a future out there if we get the infrastructure in the right place that enables us to do things that are both environmentally favourable but also practically favourable to the consumers of energy. Of course it's free overnight because that's not when most people want it which takes us neatly to the whole point of storage. I declare for members I'm a member of the institution of engineering and technology and in the October magazine there's a monthly magazine of up to date projects they describe what's really a very exciting project indeed. It's a lithium oxygen battery which uses graphene that's single atom level graphite carbon to protect the electrodes from corrosion in the pure oxygen environment that's required in these batteries and they have a demonstrator that's working in the lab that means in 10 years time it might be available to us as consumers and this battery weight for weight and volume for volume is able to store the same amount of energy as a tank full of petrol and it already in demonstrator mode is able theoretically for one-fifth of the cost of present technology one-fifth of the weight to travel 650 kilometres between Edinburgh and London. In other words it's a direct and genuine competitor with the current petrol and diesel engines that we have in our cars today. Now we can't guarantee it's going to come out the lab and end up as a commercial product but I think the portents are really quite encouraging and it is in the whole technology batteries that we've seen enormous changes taking place and of course the point about this is of course if you've got local generation of turbine on your roof and you're able to charge your car overnight for a normal tank full of energy that's pretty good because the transmission cost is nil you're in control of what's going on and of course there's huge environmental benefits and I contrast that with of course what the Financial Times was reporting on Tuesday last week where they tell us that so ill managed has the energy supply been in the United Kingdom that the UK government is having to contract diesel powered stations and we now like diesel a lot less than we did a few months ago before Volkswagen revealed to us how polluting it is that we'll be spending £436 million to provide excess diesel capacity precisely at a point where we're shutting down renewables. Doesn't he make sense? Excellent debate, well done Mike McKenzie. I look forward to hearing what the minister has to say. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you. At which point I will now invite the minister to respond to the debate and ask for a question to take seven minutes or so to do so. Well I think this has been an excellent debate thanks to Mike McKenzie bringing it forward and welcoming very much Scottish renewables paper energy storage basics which I think sets the context and certainly repays a close reading Presiding Officer. It begins by stating that our demand for energy varies constantly throughout days, weeks and months and our energy system needs to be flexible and deliver electricity and heat at the right times and traditionally this was done by combination of fossil fuels primarily with some nuclear but increasingly this is going to be done by a transition to low-carbon sources of energy and I think we all accept that the transition needs to be practicable and managed and it needs, as Mr Johnson said, to incorporate the diversity and variety of supply something I've always argued but a transition there must be and the transition to low-carbon renewable generation is not straightforward because renewable generation is variable depending upon the weather whilst nuclear is inflexible and that means that we need to be both innovative and long-standing storage technologies to provide greater flexibility must be brought forward and ultimately storage used in conjunction with renewables can help to tackle climate change and decrease our reliance on fossil fuels and maintain our energy security. I was also interested in the report from the institution of civil engineers, Presiding Officer, published at the end of last month which highlighted the storage's significant potential in helping to ease the tightening of capacity margins to manage increasing peak demand and the intermittency of renewables to meet renewables emissions targets and to extend ageing infrastructure and stem increasing costs and they had two interesting recommendations one was to exempt storage operators from balancing services use of system because pump storage pays twice effectively to draw in and then expel the energy twice that's surely not fair very very sensible suggestion indeed secondly classifying storage as a specific activity for distribution network operator dno's and I think during the debate we've heard from various members David Torrance about the the championing of hydrogen techniques in Fife we've heard of the Aberdeen hydrogen bus experiment Mr Don set out the need for more storage solutions a more electricity more storage of heat as well a the Sarah Boyack pointed to district heating where we already have 10,000 homes and I hope I leave practically to obtain another 16,000 in the district heating network by 220 with an ambition to obtain a further 14,000 on top of that and Stuart Stevenson's remarks reminded me of the truism that no matter how well informed any minister may be minister for energy may be no matter how diligent and hardworking technological advances will always be far ahead of the minister although not far ahead of Mr Stevenson. Presiding Officer I think the going back to the Scottish renewables report I can't really beat the description of the of the report in various sections and let me quote pumped hydro storage how it works pumped storage schemes work by using electricity to pump water from a lower to a higher reservoir where it can be stored and then when required release to generate electricity as a conventional hydroelectric power station would energy release time 10 seconds to two minutes that would get rid of the 2,500 pounds a megawatt hour cost which we saw on a spike in a day when the weather wasn't cold so the benefits of pumped hydro storage have been considered against the high costs in the past and one of the arguments that I've put to Amber Rudd at a meeting several weeks ago was that in an electricity system which we have in the UK where increasingly there is a greater new renewables component which is stochastic then the benefits of pumped storage become far greater than they used to be in a conventional fossil fuel model and therefore we have asked that the model the cost benefit analysis be reconsidered by experts in order I think to demonstrate that although it is not cheap it is not as expensive as is I think believed perhaps by the national grid who are supposed to be a technology energy source neutral I believe so we hope that they will take that message and indeed I met cordial hara their new chief executive last week and delivered it in person we have always argued that there should be more storage solutions this is not new I've been arguing this from the outset it's incorporated in our energy generation policy statement I called several years ago further to be an inter-governmental group between Scotland and the UK to look at pumped storage and find a means of making it work in other words financeable sadly I davey at that time who I suspect was personally supportive of the idea did not approve the idea however I've suggested an alternative proposal to amber Rudd when I met her some weeks ago which is that there should be a UK government devolved administration expert group that should well I really like to make these points I'm very sorry because I need to to make progress there should be an expert group of comprised of senior officials a of the UK government and devolved administration and it should specifically be tasked to look at flexibility which would incorporate storage interconnection and other methods of providing flexibility in the grid in other words it would look at the issue in the round now signing officer I think has many members have indicated the requirement for more storage is not something which is going to be optional it is something which I think will prove to be essential a cine qua non of a system where there's more renewables and indeed where the capacity margin is parlously low as we've seen of late and we will also need storage not only at transmission level of pumped storage but as members have said at distribution and indeed at household level and members have talked about battery storage lithium batteries a liquid compressed air hydro storage and domestic thermal storage and indeed other forms and I'd like to to refer again to the Scottish renewables report who referred to the East Lothian based company Sunamp who have developed the Sunamp PV system which is designed to store excess electricity from a solar PV array as heat and it can later deliver fast flowing hot water on demand and Sunamp are set to install over 700 units of Sunamp PV and other Sunamp heat battery products in over a thousand homes across Falkirk, Edinburgh and the Lonings. I visited this company and I've described them before as the Scottish answer to Tesla. We have encouraged various activities through a local energy challenge fund some in Mr Torrance's area some in East Lothian and some throughout the country but in conclusion I think we do need to see the UK government recognise the key role that storage has to play as we move forward it is absurd that as Mr Stevenson said we need 1.5 gigawatts of diesel power at a cost of £436 million a temporary and polluting solution leaving no long-term legacy we have the pump storage resources in Scotland we should be used by the UK they should find a method of incentivising this there are only three gigawatts of pump storage in Britain that compares with eight gigawatts in Austria and Germany and France have twice as much as the UK therefore in conclusion signing officer I do think that across the chamber there have been very useful contributions to this debate and I think it's a topic that we will come back to on many future occasions and rightly so thank you again to Mr Mackenzie for allowing this debate this evening thank you and that concludes my Mackenzie's debate energy storage network and then I close this meeting of parliament