Local MP, Dame Caroline Dinenage, has welcomed the news of cleaner and more affordable energy to be made in Great Britain under bold plans to boost long-term energy independence, security and prosperity.
The Government’s British Energy Security Strategy sets out how Great Britain will accelerate the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen, whilst supporting the production of domestic oil and gas in the nearer term – which could see 95% of electricity by 2030 being low carbon.
The strategy will see significantly more nuclear energy, with an ambition of up to 24GW by 2050 to come from this safe, clean, and reliable source of power. This would represent up to around 25% of our projected electricity demand. Subject to technology readiness from industry, Small Modular Reactors will form a key part of the nuclear project pipeline.
A new government body, Great British Nuclear, will be set up immediately to bring forward new projects, backed by substantial funding, and we will launch the £120 million Future Nuclear Enabling Fund this month. We will work to progress a series of projects as soon as possible this decade, including Wylfa site in Anglesey. This could mean delivering up to eight reactors, equivalent to one reactor a year instead of one a decade, accelerating nuclear in Britain.
- Offshore wind: A new ambition of up to 50GW by 2030 – more than enough to power every home in the UK – of which we would like to see up to 5GW from floating offshore wind in deeper seas. This will be underpinned by new planning reforms to cut the approval times for new offshore wind farms from 4 years to 1 year and an overall streamlining which will radically reduce the time it takes for new projects to reach construction stages while improving the environment.
- Oil and gas: A licensing round for new North Sea oil and gas projects planned to launch in Autumn, with a new taskforce providing bespoke support to new developments – recognising the importance of these fuels to the transition and to our energy security, and that producing gas in the UK has a lower carbon footprint than imported from abroad.
- Onshore wind: We will be consulting on developing partnerships with a limited number of supportive communities who wish to host new onshore wind infrastructure in return for guaranteed lower energy bills.
- Heat pump manufacturing: We will run a Heat Pump Investment Accelerator Competition in 2022 worth up to £30 million to make British heat pumps, which reduce demand for gas.
- We will also look to increase the UK’s current 14GW of solar capacity which could grow up to 5 times by 2035, consulting on the rules for solar projects, particularly on domestic and commercial rooftops.
We will aim to double our ambition to up to 10GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030, with at least half coming from green hydrogen and utilising excess offshore wind power to bring down costs. This will not only provide cleaner energy for vital British industries to move away from expensive fossil fuels, but could also be used for cleaner power, transport and potentially heat.
Commenting Caroline said:
“Many local people are concerned about rising energy prices and our reliance on other countries, so I welcome the Government’s commitment to increasing energy security and affordability.
Investing in cleaner and greener energy is of the utmost importance, it will have a big impact on consumer bills in the future.”
The Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, said:
“We’re setting out bold plans to scale up and accelerate affordable, clean and secure energy made in Britain, for Britain – from new nuclear to offshore wind – in the decade ahead.
This will reduce our dependence on power sources exposed to volatile international prices we cannot control, so we can enjoy greater energy self-sufficiency with cheaper bills.”
Business and Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, said:
“We have seen record high gas prices around the world. We need to protect ourselves from price spikes in the future by accelerating our move towards cleaner, cheaper, home-grown energy.
The simple truth is that the more cheap, clean power we generate within our borders, the less exposed we will be to eye watering fossil fuel prices set by global markets we can’t control.
Scaling up cheap renewables and new nuclear, while maximising North Sea production, is the best and only way to ensure our energy independence over the coming years.”
ENDS
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Notes to editors
- Prices of renewables have been consistently decreasing, with the price of offshore wind dramatically falling by around 65% since 2015, onshore wind prices down 50% since 2013, and residential roof top solar panels are now less than 50% the price they were a decade ago.
- In the immediate term, we’re providing £9 billion package of support for consumers to manage rising cost of living. This includes a £150 council tax rebate from April and a further £200 energy bill reduction in October to cut energy bills quickly for the majority of households, while the energy price cap continues to insulate millions of customers from even higher volatile global gas prices. We are investing over £6.6 billion to improve energy efficiency and decarbonise heating over this parliament. In the next few years this will deliver upgrades to over half a million homes, delivering average bill savings of £300.
- To further drive down demand, and permanently reduce energy bills in the longer term, a temporary VAT cut on the installation of energy efficiency projects such as solar panels, insulation and heat pumps will be in place for the next five years to 2027.
- Britain’s first nuclear power station in a generation, Hinkley Point C, is currently under construction, and we are in constructive negotiations with the developer on the Sizewell C project in Suffolk. The 2 projects combined would generate about 6.5GW of power.
