Mr. Philip Newsome:

I thank the Chair for those comments. I have a few points to make in response. The Chair highlighted the level of renewable electricity that is being spilled, as he put it, or curtailed. We are acutely aware of that. It highlights the need particularly to look at other technologies to make use of that, whether that is storage – and we have talked today about green hydrogen – but also batteries and other forms of storage to try to address that. There is moving demand to try and match the supply. The Chair made the point that the island communities could be test beds for these types of technologies. There is the clean energy for EU islands initiative. There are many islands throughout Europe, such as the Spanish islands and Portuguese islands, including the Azores, that are looking at becoming test beds for developing these technologies, renewables and storage. The points are well-made around how that could be brought forward here.

The points on whether it is the export cable or actually looking at own demand and maybe storage are important things to consider in the island context. We are looking at storage policy. We had a consultation on that this year. That is one of the things-----