Our thoughts on ‘UK Green Day’

Powering up Britain. What happened on ‘UK Green Day’

Following a raft of documents released by the Government on ‘Green Day’ yesterday, including ‘Powering up Britain’, the feeling is the focus should have been more on renewables.

Low cost, low carbon and locally produced – renewable energy will be critical when trying to secure consumers against volatile global energy markets. Instead, the focus was very much on carbon capture and storage, nuclear and hydrogen. All are valid options for energy security but remain a decade away.

Right now, onshore wind is an efficient, cheap and widely supported technology. The Government has consulted on changes to planning policy in England for onshore wind. We, like many organisations, submitted representation to that NPPF consultation calling for all planning restrictions to be lifted so consenting would match other electricity generation. This is required to use this technology effectively to deliver net-zero.

We await the Government’s response to the NPPF consultation and hope the door for onshore wind is opened further, but we remain sceptical on the lack of urgency to unlock an industry with so much more potential.

@Department for Energy Security and Net Zero seeks large scale solar deployment across the UK, looking for development mainly on brownfield, industrial and low/medium grade agricultural land. Importantly the Government will not be making changes to categories of agricultural land in ways that might constrain solar deployment. This is positive.

There are further changes being proposed to National Policy Statements which are massively overdue, including EN3 for renewable energy. We will respond to this consultation with a deadline of the 25^th May 2023. As onshore wind is excluded from the NSIP regime, it does not feature in this consultation.

The fundamental issue facing the delivery of net-zero is not investment in and deployment of renewable generation, but access for these projects to the grid in a cost effective and timely manner. The changes in the way we need to generate electricity to deliver net-zero necessitates largescale changes to the electricity networks. Reforms need to keep up with the appetite for delivering renewable energy.

The following is an extract from ‘Powering Up Britain’ on grid reforms:

• Plans to accelerate the delivery of strategic transmission upgrades by at least three years, with an ambition to cut delivery times in half.
• @Nick Winser CBE FREng The Electricity Networks Commissioner has been tasked to advise government on accelerating grid delivery, with recommendations due in June.
• Working to reform the grid connections process, at both transmission and distribution levels, which is delaying generation projects across the UK.
• A connections action plan published in the summer.

All of this is necessary but it’s the outcomes of these reviews and the delivery against the action plans that are critical. Time is very much of the essence on delivering net-zero, which goes hand in hand with delivering energy security.