Government ministers face rising calls to lift their block on onshore wind farms to help meet the UK’s ambitious climate targets while reducing home energy bills.
Some of Europe’s largest energy investors have urged the government to overturn an effective ban on new onshore wind farms in England, warning that it may be stifling a flood of investment into the UK’s clean energy sector.
Peter Dickson, a partner at Glennmont Partners, which manages Europe’s largest ever clean energy fund, is among those urging the government to change its stance. He said if the UK is “serious” about climate crisis target “policymakers must encourage all forms of renewable power generation.”
“This includes revisiting proposals for developing onshore wind in the UK,” he said.
The Committee on Climate Change says cutting greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050 is necessary, affordable and desirable. Here are some of the actions needed to make that happen:
• Petrol and diesel cars banned from sale ideally by 2030 and 2035 at the latest.
• Quadrupling clean electricity production from wind, solar and perhaps nuclear, plus batteries to store it and connections to Europe to share the load.
• Connection of new homes to the gas grid ending in 2025, with boilers using clean hydrogen or replaced by electric powered heat pumps. Plus, all homes and appliances being highly efficient.
• Beef, lamb and dairy consumption falling by 20%, though this is far lower than other studies recommend and a bigger shift to plant-based diets would make meeting the zero target easier.
• A fifth of all farmland – 15% of the UK – being converted to tree planting and growing biofuel crops and restoration of peat bogs. This is vital to take CO2 out of the air to balance unavoidable emissions from cattle and planes.
• 1.5bn new trees will be needed, meaning more than 150 football pitches a day of new forests from now to 2050.
• Flying would not be banned, but the number of flights will depend on how much airlines can cut emissions with electric planes or biofuels.
A boom in new onshore wind projects could also cut energy bills by £50 a year compared to a high-gas energy mix according to new research commissioned by RenewableUK, the trade body.
The calls to back an onshore wind renaissance reignited following prime minister Theresa May’s decision earlier this week to legislate a net zero carbon target for 2050.
Under current rules only offshore wind farms can compete for government contracts in subsidy auctions.
The analysis undertaken by Vivid Economics shows that growing onshore wind from 13GW today to 35GW by 2035 would reduce the cost of electricity by 7%.
Onshore wind is expected to be cheaper than gas-generated electricity because of plummeting turbine technology costs and the rising cost of carbon emissions, according to the report.
An onshore wind boom could also treble the number of jobs supported by the sector to 31,000 and boost exports to £360m a year by 2035.
Dickson said: “Investors we speak with are increasingly viewing fossil fuel-based generation plant as stranded assets and are looking for opportunities to divest into new technologies that help to tackle climate change.”
Norwegian energy giant Statkraft, Europe’s largest renewable energy generator, echoed the call for greater ambition for renewable energy including “low-cost options like onshore wind”.
Alan Whitehead, the shadow minister for energy and climate change, said: “Onshore wind is a win-win-win. It reduces reliance on imported fuels, reduces energy prices for households and reduces carbon.
“It is simply economically illiterate not to go for onshore wind in a big way. The government should remove their barriers to onshore wind and engage communities to get it built,” he said.
