Sam Sheppard, Senior Communications and Campaigns Manager
30/09/2025
Setting the record straight on renewables: learn to tackle misinformation at Future Energy Wales
30 September 2025
Falsehoods and myths are widespread across renewable energy, from entrenched misconceptions to negative media spin. It often feels like our sector is dragged from one culture war topic to the next, all of which is being turbocharged by various political wings and the polarising nature of social media.
We are seeing the mechanisms that drive our industry scrutinised to a previously unforeseen degree, from claims renewables are responsible for constraint payments, despite over 70% of these going to gas generators, to disputing the legality and efficacy of Contracts for Difference, when we know the CfD scheme has been enormously successful and copied worldwide.
But how can the industry tackle these challenges, shape public understanding, and develop effective counter-narratives? Next month I am excited to be attending Future Energy Wales to address exactly this topic, as I get set to Chair our first ever panel on misinformation - Fact or Fiction? Setting the record straight – on Wednesday 8 October.
Wales is deeply divided on a number of issues relating to grid expansion, onshore wind, and the impacts of renewable energy development on both nature and tourism. Against this backdrop, and with broader misrepresentation being consistently perpetuated about the sector, our interactive session will explore how perception can be distorted, and how we can develop effective counterpoints to ensure the public, local communities and key decision-makers have the facts they need.
This is an area RenewableUK has been working proactively to address in recent months, and I am delighted to be discussing it with a panel of Welsh experts including Lisa Childs, Associate Director of Infrastructure & Major Projects and Wales Lead at Copper Consultancy, Rebecca Windemer, Planning Lead at Regen, Catryn Newton, Community and Communications Director at Bute Energy, and Guto Davies, Head of External Affairs at Green GEN Cymru.
