Renewable Energy Under Labour

How will the UK’s green energy strategy be impacted by the changing of the guard?

A new government inevitably brings a raft of new policies and approaches to a number of key issues. But what will the changing of the guard mean for green energy?

Now that we are a few months into the new premiership, we take a look at what Kier Starmer’s Labour government could mean for the UK’s renewable energy strategy.

Green power 5 years earlier than the Conservatives

The previous Conservative government targeted 2035 to decarbonise the power supply. The new Labour government want to achieve this 5 years earlier – by having a completely green electricity supply by 2030, turning the UK into a ‘clean energy superpower’. This is a laudable objective, although given that the target is just over 5 years away there are inevitable questions around how realistic this may be.

More onshore wind

Within 72 hours of starting his new role as Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband had announced that the Conservative’s de facto ban on the rollout of new onshore wind installations was being lifted. The Conservative’s planning framework contained footnotes that enabled the blocking of new onshore wind projects that faced a single objection – this wording has now been removed. Although new onshore wind will still need to meet the usual planning hurdles, this opens the door for it to regain its place as a valuable contributor to the UK’s energy mix.

Ed Miliband also recently rejected calls for a limit on the height of wind farms – paving the way for taller, more efficient turbines.

Simplified planning for new renewable generation

Labour’s Housing, Communities and Local Government department has released draft planning documents introducing a host of amendments designed to expedite the development of new renewable energy generation.

Ministers currently need to sign-off new wind or solar producing more than 50 megawatts (MW) of power – under the assumption that it’s ‘nationally significant’ development. Proposed amendments to the National Planning Policy Framework would increase this threshold to 100MW for wind and 150MW for solar, leaving smaller projects to be managed through local planning. This will also remove the bottleneck associated with the requirement for them to be processed by the national Planning Inspectorate.

In theory this should simplify and speed up development of these projects – bolstered by new wording in the planning framework requiring local planning authorities to “support planning applications for all forms of renewable and low-carbon development.” The implication is that councils or other planning authorities rejecting proposals will be exposed to expensive legal appeals that developers are likely to win.

This is underpinned by an additional requirement for councils and local planners to “identify suitable areas for renewable and low-carbon energy sources, and supporting infrastructure” in their local plans.

At the other end of the scale, large projects (including onshore wind) would fall under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIP) regime, with sign-off falling to the Energy Secretary rather than local planning authorities – enabling Ed Milliband to give the green light to projects that may otherwise have faced time-costly local planning opposition.

More solar – including on land that could have been used for food production

Ed Miliband has made his approach to solar development clear with the statement that “solar power is crucial to achieving net zero”.

This was accompanied by the rapid approval of three of the largest new solar farms in the UK within days of his new tenure. This included the Sunnica Energy Farm development on the West Suffolk and Cambridgeshire border, going against the Planning Inspectorate’s recommendation to reject the proposal – a clear signal of his intent to push through controversial projects.

The new draft of the National Planning Policy Framework also removes the requirement to consider availability of agricultural land used for food production when looking at new renewable energy development. This is likely to green light projects that may otherwise have been rejected due to being sited on land that could have been used for food production.

The secretary for state is also targeting rooftop solar, stating “I want to unleash a UK solar rooftop revolution”. This may involve compulsory inclusion of rooftop solar in newbuild developments.

The creation of Great British Energy

At the core of Labour’s new approach to sustainable energy development is the creation of a publicly-owned energy company called Great British Energy (GB Energy or GBE), headquartered in Scotland. This new entity will use public-private partnerships to invest in, manage and operate renewable energy projects around the UK. Its aim will be grow mature technologies such as wind, solar and nuclear whilst also kick-starting the development of less mature technologies such as tidal, low-carbon hydrogen and floating offshore wind.

It will be backed by £8.3 billion of funds over this Parliament, driving up to £60 billion investment in the sector. Initially £3.3 billion of this is earmarked for local authorities to provide “low-interest loans” for community solar and wind.

An initial partnership with the Crown Estate has already been announced, partly driven by the Crown’s ownership and management of the seabed around the UK, which will accelerate the growth of offshore wind.

The success of GBE will ultimately depend on balancing the benefits of public ownership with the challenges of operating in a competitive, rapidly evolving energy market.

Accelerated grid connections

Obtaining new grid connections is a major issue for new renewable energy generators, with substantial waiting times for new projects wanting to export power to the grid. In some cases projects have been told that they will need to wait more than 5 years to be hooked up to the power network. This has effectively blocked renewable power projects from coming online.

Under their “rewiring Britain” plans, Labour will focus on removing these bottlenecks to speed up the connection of new renewable energy projects, potentially unlocking over £200 billion of private investment in renewable generation.

This will require substantial short-term investment in the grid infrastructure but should pay dividends when new energy generation is able to come on stream.

In conclusion…

The general flavour of Labour’s policies and commitments suggest a strong focus on expanding renewable energy generation in the UK. Although there have been some concrete actions already, much of the real change is yet to come. We will watch with interest to see if and how some of the above strategies are implemented over the coming term – and just how successful they are in working towards that 2030 target.