The new Labour government has taken some promising steps on decarbonising energy, but serious bottlenecks remain on the journey towards net zero. Tim Clark reports
It marked a significant policy shift and a break from almost a decade of moratoriums on onshore wind in the UK.
A subtle deletion of a line in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has allowed the incoming Labour government to get the wheels of onshore wind turning once more, and help to deliver on the party’s core goal of delivering net-zero power generation by 2030.
The very notion that the UK could decarbonise its energy system by the end of the decade seems like fantasy. However, with appointments such as the chief executive of the Carbon Trust, Chris Stark to lead such initiatives, the quick action to get renewable power approved at ministerial level, and signals to the market that the government is listening, have formed the first few positive steps from those who have been watching the new government’s green agenda.
“The policy shift is significant, but it is unlikely to result in an immediate surge in development due to existing delays in grid connections and the planning system,” says Osborne Clarke’s Lauren Gardner.
“The new government’s announcement did allude to planning reform ‘to deliver the infrastructure our country needs’ and set out ‘new policy intentions for critical infrastructure’, but it will remain to be seen what impact these promises will have on infrastructure projects.”
Intriguing promise
Those promises are intriguing. Housing and infrastructure seem to have preoccupied the new Labour government’s mind while in opposition, and the raft of planning commitments only days into the new regime is no coincidence.
However for new onshore wind farms to take off, sites will still need to be viable. As Osborne Clark’s Gardner points out, the onshore wind ban never existed in Scotland, but delivery is a different matter.
The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has called the Labour election win as being given a “climate mandate” to revolutionise not only the energy system, but also consumption.
Simon McWhirter, deputy chief executive at UKGBC is expecting a new era in national decision-making, saying: “To end the eternal battle around planning, Rachel Reeves will need to give the system a clear and progressive new purpose that everyone can get behind, so that every planning decision helps, not hinders, affordability, access to public services, and climate and nature.
“In opposition, Labour rightly voted to align the planning system with the Climate Act. Also aligning it to the Environment Act will help navigate what and where to build.”
The major reversals in onshore wind and solar is likely to be the first step in this new era of decision-making and aligning with the various Acts.
The new government also faces a call for clearer targets to encourage development rather than a vague suggestion of doubling onshore wind by 2030 to only 35GW. With the target for solar-generated energy set at 70GW by 2035, onshore wind that aims for only half of this capacity have been criticised for a lack of aspiration.
“The new Labour government has declared a focus on renewable energy with a drive for self-sufficiency in the UK, and an immediate u-turn on onshore wind farms. However, the substance behind these is missing, and we fear that a comprehensive strategy that covers energy and the infrastructure supporting it, has not yet been put together,” says Richard Huteson, planning partner at Rapleys.
Grid capacity
“The grid is at capacity; it cannot take any more electricity and its infrastructure is unable to cope with distributing it either. We can generate electricity via renewable sources but unless it can be distributed, it will have nowhere to go.”
New grid connections and a ramp up of low-carbon energy isn’t only a sustainability win for the new government. It has been clear for some time that the UK has faced an energy crunch when it comes to connecting new homes or businesses to the grid.
New projects such as data centres are seen as problematic as they take up so much electricity to operate. The notion of building 1.5m homes can remain a pipedream unless the energy conundrum is solved.
Renewable generation will also be boosted by the three new solar farms that energy secretary Ed Miliband approved in the past few days. The three major solar farms in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Suffolk will together provide around 1.35GW of capacity to the network, which is a 10% increase in the UK’s solar generation at the stroke of a pen.
The 2,500-acre solar farm operated by Sunnica on the Cambridgeshire-Suffolk border will provide energy for 172,000 homes and create 1,500 jobs during the construction period. Together the three major solar farms aim to help Miliband deliver an ambitious plan to triple the amount of solar power in the UK by 2030.
It isn’t only major wind farms that the government looks set to approve. Miliband said he was keen to unleash a “UK solar rooftop revolution”, meaning that subsidies for household solar generation are likely to be reintroduced after being wound down in 2016.
An interesting aspect of the three solar farms is the location in the East of England. According to Sugandha Srivastav, of Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, a large part of the renewable energy generation takes place in the North, and the South is where a large amount of demand is found.
Unfortunately, these transmission lines are congested and power supplies from the North to the South are often curtailed,” Srivastav told The Guardian. “So solar in the South is going to fix a key problem. It will keep power costs low, which is what we desperately need.”
The links from North to South will be a priority for new capacity, especially if the government’s pro-growth agenda sees more energy-hungry schemes such as data centres approved in the South of England.
Batteries not included
“The UK will simply not be able to cope with the infrastructure as it is today,” Huteson adds.
“Battery storage is both expensive and not widespread for the amounts we would need to support major projects – even the majority of people who have solar panels on their roofs still need to be connected to the grid.”
According to Laurence Oakes-Ash, chief executive of City Science, one way the government can speed the path to a renewable future without breaking their now gold-plated spending commitments is to help deliver market certainty, and thus unlock private investment.
“Government borrowing should be used where it is clear that it is supported by productive assets with ring-fenced returns,” he says. “Demand for energy is not going away, and energy projects have tangible returns.
“Whether via SPVs [special purpose vehicles], guarantees, or simply direct borrowing, the Labour government needs to un-constrain productive net zero investment by enabling ring-fenced borrowing, and setting out clearly how this will be assessed and managed. With the right approach in my view the markets will reward them, even if absolute borrowing goes up.”
Borrowing rules within local government may also need to be revisited, with Oakes-Ash also calling for dual interest rates for net zero from the Bank of England – one for the main economy, one for the green economy – could spur growth.
Less than two weeks into a new Labour government, the signals on net zero are promising. The King’s Speech today and budget later this year should put more focus on how the government plans to follow through in the long term.
Image credit: Zigzag Mountain Art/Shutterstock
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