§ Sue DoughtyTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact on the total level of generation of electricity from coal mine methane sold via licensed electricity suppliers of its exemption from the climate change levy. [53731]
§ Mr. WilsonThe Government do not have their own estimate for the extra sites which would be developed as a result of the CCL exemption, but the Association of Coal Mine Methane Operators has estimated that around 30 new sites could be made viable as a result. It is for the280W operators to respond to the incentive that has been provided, but if all the association projects went ahead this would add something in the region of 175 MW of electricity generating capacity with the electricity produced per annum totalling about 1.4 terawatt hours.
§ Sue DoughtyTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what assessment she has made of the impact on carbon dioxide emissions of the exemption from the climate change levy of electricity from electricity from coal mine methane sold via licensed electricity suppliers.[53732]
§ Mr. WilsonUsing methane from abandoned mines will reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere and therefore has a significant environmental benefit. The scale of the environmental benefit cannot be precisely quantified at present, because the effect of pumping the gas leads to some acceleration in the extraction rate beyond the level of natural leakage from abandoned mines. Work is in hand to inform these estimates.