E&I ‘welcomes any input into electricity strategy development’

As a group of politicians released an independent report pushing forward wind and solar options for the island, Environment & Infrastructure Committee president Lindsay de Sausmarez warned that her committee was involved in a complex piece of work that will take time.

‘Obviously we welcome any input into the development of our electricity strategy, which we’ve been working on since it was prioritised in the government work plan last year,’ Deputy de Sausmarez said.

‘The scoping report does reference a lot of the work we have done. The report has drawn on the work of the renewable energy team and our technical consultation. It draws on the solid base we have put together over many years.’

• Watch: Deputy de Sausmarez on the future electricity strategy

Deputy de Sausmarez said she was quite surprised not to be invited to the group of 14 deputies who met in October last year as she had previously sat on the renewable energy team, and was also surprised at other omissions.

‘If anyone is looking at renewables, I would have thought the obvious people to invite, unless it was a general invite to everyone, would have been Deputy Yvonne Burford, who has academic qualifications in renewable energy, specifically offshore wind,’ she said.

‘Deputies Heidi Soulsby and Jonathan Le Tocq have long had an interest in this area. Deputy Al Brouard has also been on renewable energy team for many years. I can’t speak for Deputies Meerveld and De Lisle on how they put together that original meeting, but perhaps they missed opportunities to involve people who had knowledge and interest.

‘People might have got a misleading impression about the group of 14 deputies that were invited to that initial meeting. It is important to clarify that not all of those people were actively involved in the writing of those reports,’ said Deputy de Sausmarez,

‘To clarify, no one from the electricity strategy or the electricity strategy steering group was actively involved in those reports.’

When asked if she was generally supportive of a large wind farm like those described in the scoping report she said that wind power was of course something that E&I was keeping a close eye on in terms of technical advancements and applicability.

‘We are writing the strategy to look at these questions in the round, and access what is best for Guernsey, with solid reliable technical evidence,’ she said.

‘This is why the electricity strategy is being written. It’s going to be the fundamental bedrock of some big generational decisions.

‘We are hoping to bring it to States in early part of next year. We went through a technical consultation – a really detailed and complex piece of work. It answered questions, but threw up others, which is the reason for not publishing this year. Once we’ve got the answers to those questions we will be in a position to publish.’