JERSEY must renew its emphasis on renewable energy to guard against possible geopolitical threats to French nuclear energy supplies, the Energy and Climate Minister has warned.
Deputy Hilary Jeune, who returned earlier this week from the COP27 conference in Egypt, said that while Jersey Electricity had done an excellent job in hedging electricity prices from France, the war in Ukraine could have a longer-term impact on nuclear-generated electricity from the Gallic country.
‘We see in France that they have quite a big dependency on gas and they want to reduce that dependency because it’s mainly Russian gas. We see them building big wind farms and they will probably start thinking what their other alternatives are to get away from gas, so they [they are likely to] turn to nuclear and to their renewables as well,’ she said. ‘At the moment they sell energy outside France to us and to Luxembourg. I can see that potentially, as they need to reduce that dependency, they may need all of, or more than, the energy they produce, which could have an impact on those countries around them, including Jersey. Therefore, I think it’s important that we do look at our renewables mix and how we can increase that.’
However, she acknowledged that renewable energy was not ‘constantly reliable’ and that the Island would always require energy in other forms to supplement its energy mix.
At COP27, Deputy Jeune met a range of ministers from other jurisdictions to discuss international commitments to carbon reduction in the face of rising inflation. She said that the Council of Ministers was committed to bolstering Jersey’s climate-change fund, for which £23m has been set aside to begin the implementation of the carbon-neutral roadmap adopted earlier this year.
‘We do need more money and that is something we have absolutely recognised as a ministerial team, so we will be looking in 2023 at that long-term financing and what it looks like, and will engage in some research into the different mechanisms to enable us to finance the plan,’ she said.
Poised to announce incentives next year to encourage Islanders to switch from gas- and oil-fired boilers to lower-carbon solutions, Deputy Jeune said that the Island was also due to hold talks with its counterparts in Guernsey next month to explore ways in which, by working together, they could help develop a larger green-energy market. With Environment Minister Jonathan Renouf, she is due to meet Deputy Lindsay De Sausmarez – who leads Guernsey’s committee for the environment – in the first of what is hoped might be periodic meetings to discuss shared interests.
