Labour Party conference marks start of new era for renewables

Written by Richard Dunkley, CEO at OnPath Energy

This week’s Labour Party conference in Liverpool will be the first one in 15 years where delegates will come together with the party in power.

The new government has been very firm in its commitment to making Britain a clean energy superpower, with Labour’s election manifesto making clear how important the deployment of more renewable energy technologies across the UK will be in order to achieve Labour’s Clean Energy Mission 2030.

With this in mind, an OnPath Energy team will be attending the Labour conference to play our part in the discussions around the future of UK energy policy and to hear how the government is intending to put its plans into action.

After operating for over a decade in a tough policy climate where it has been incredibly difficult to build new onshore wind farms in Scotland, and virtually impossible in England, we now have a new political lens through which to consider onshore wind. We have moved from why we should or shouldn’t do onshore wind to how can we best do onshore wind to achieve greener and secure UK energy with lower bills.

The new government has already made a bold start since coming into power in July, with:

– the removal of the planning ban for onshore wind farms in England

– the formation of the new Mission Control to coordinate work

– the creation of Great British Energy

– the launch of the Onshore Wind Industry Taskforce, which will identify and then deliver the actions needed to accelerate onshore wind deployment

– a successful CfD AR6 auction that awarded contracts for 131 projects and 9.6GW capacity

– and the announcement of the government acquiring the National Energy System Operator (NESO).

There is a great deal more work required to create the circumstances in which Net Zero will be achieved.

Achieving the 2030 clean electricity target for the power sector does not mean it will be job done. Most experts predict the near doubling of UK electricity demand from c300TWh a year today to nearly 600TWh a year in 2050, when full decarbonisation of the UK’s energy supply is meant to be achieved by.

That additional demand will be required as we decarbonise heat and transport and it will need to be sourced by additional wind and solar generation, supported by a greater penetration of storage.

The lifting of the ban on onshore wind in England cannot result in the immediate deployment of new turbines in England as there is no meaningful development pipeline to deploy. Very few developers have invested into English sites due to the negative policy environment of the last decade. It takes several years to identify, develop, invest, submit plans and consent a new wind farm.

Nearly every onshore wind developer will have invested capital and resource into Scottish wind farms, the deployment of which will be essential to achieving the immediate 2030 Net Zero targets. So, we should expect Scottish onshore wind farms to be deployed ahead of a gradual increase in deployment rates of new English onshore wind farms, but all of which will be required for the UK’s longer term 2050 Net Zero targets.

For OnPath, we will now commence onshore wind development in England. This development work will be carried out in the same careful, professional manner that has characterised our operations over the last two decades. It is essential that all developers maintain an open, honest and respectful approach to their work, particularly in respect of the communities in which they’re looking to operate.

The ambition for Net Zero is certainly high. Setting targets is easy but without a widely agreed multidimensional plan for delivery, the targets will risk being missed.

This includes committing now to building major grid infrastructure at pace (and recognising the planning challenge this involves), the effective implementation of grid connection queue management; the need for planning reform and a major resourcing up of the planning departments of local authorities. It requires a recognition that we are competing globally for vital electrical equipment, and importantly requires a major commitment to training and investment in STEM.

Support for local employment, training and apprenticeship initiatives should be high on the list, which in turn can help to deliver the skilled workforce that the UK renewables industry requires as it grows in the years to come and supports the government’s crucial drive for economic growth.

The wider challenge for all of us who wish to see Net Zero succeed is to ensure that short, medium and long-term targets can be achieved in an effective and pragmatic way; at the lowest cost to the consumer, which importantly also means in a way that provides investor certainty. All the time ensuring we collaborate effectively with local communities hosting projects and ensure they reap tangible benefits from the growth of UK green energy security.

OnPath currently has more than three gigawatts of renewable energy generation and electricity storage projects in our pipeline, with more set to follow. As part of the Brookfield portfolio, we now have access to capital, global relationships for procurement and routes to market with strategic counterparties like Microsoft that put us in a great position to make a meaningful contribution to delivering Labour’s Clean Energy Mission 2030 and 2050 Net Zero.

Looking ahead, what we’d like to see by the time the next Labour Party conference comes around is tangible progress on the development of meaningful, executable policy proposals which provide the confidence to investors that multi-dimensional issues are being properly addressed in a way that gives them certainty to take their long-term renewables projects forward.

The litmus test of this will be renewable assets being deployed to time, and major long-term commitments being announced from renewable companies wanting to invest in the UK’s Net Zero ambition.

OnPath Energy is more than ready to play its part in the journey that we’re all on together towards these goals and we’re looking forward to meeting the challenges that lie ahead.