15/05/2024 | Offshore wind
As the UK accelerated the deployment of renewable energy and cut the costs of doing so, it produced a range of benefits: job creation across the country, economic regeneration in coastal communities, investment in supply chain companies and new manufacturing, more affordable bills for families and businesses, and greater energy security.
But how do we get there faster?
The first is a call for a clear plan to deliver our pipeline of renewable energy projects, including setting ambitious deployment targets beyond 2030 and better cross-government coordination to achieve this.
The Contracts for Difference scheme should be modernised to enable consistent volumes of renewables to be deployed year on year. The UK needs an attractive business environment which mobilises the maximum amount of private investment, in the face of fierce international competition. To create this, our electricity market should be reformed in a careful, evolutionary way, to avoid increasingly the cost of capital significantly.
We are calling for a more efficient planning framework to enable us to build projects and net zero infrastructure more swiftly. This should include an over-arching Strategic Spatial Energy Plan to ensure we get to net zero in an environmentally sensitive way, by continuing to minimise any impacts, and with the support of local communities who want to benefit from projects in their area. Unblocking onshore wind in England would be the first step towards ensuring our planning system is fit for purpose.
Our fourth action is to scale up supply chains and skills capabilities. Our Industrial Growth Plan for offshore wind, published last month, provides a blueprint for this, with the clearest assessment to date of how the UK can triple its manufacturing capacity in the next decade by investing in the most valuable parts of the supply chain for projects here and exports worldwide. Transforming ports around the UK into new industrial hubs will enable us to capitalise on innovative floating wind.
The fifth recommendation is for policies which unlock greater levels of private investment into vital flexible technologies such as long duration energy storage and the co-location of battery storage alongside wind and solar farms, to ensure our future energy system is efficient, cheaper and secure.
