Local access to energy grid

That this House notes that SSE is the incumbent energy supplier to the far north; further notes that communities are unable to sell clean, renewable energy that they generate to local people; acknowledges that this is blocking the remarkable potential for new community energy companies to emerge across the country and is also negatively contributing to fuel poverty in rural constituencies such as the Highlands; notes that local energy businesses must sell any excess energy back to SSE before local people can purchase it back at 10 times the price that local energy businesses could have originally sold it to them for; notes that if local energy business could sell directly to local people then it would benefit consumers with cheaper electricity, the environment with more renewable energy schemes, investors and the local economy; and calls on the Government to institute the right to local supply which would make the cost of selling local energy proportionate to the scale of a local supplier’s business.