With impressive speed, the new UK Government, led by Sir Keir Starmer, has reiterated the commitment to doubling onshore wind energy by 2030 and, as part of this, has today announced the immediate removal of the de facto ban on onshore wind in England. Although this change takes place today, it will be confirmed on 18 July following the State Opening of Parliament.
This is a positive step in increasing the potential supply of green electricity in the UK. There are still a number of hurdles to overcome, particularly in ensuring that there is mitigation in place to accommodate the intermittent nature of wind power. In addition, the supply of electricity will need to increase massively in the coming years if the Government's plans to electrify the transport network are to be possible, so there will need to be additional new source of electricity built in the coming years. Currently, the UK uses around 200 GW of power, of which around 30-40 GW are in the form of electricity, so there is still a huge capacity to built out the electricity grid. As such, large scale storage, improved transmission, and additional power generation plants, whether they be nuclear, wind, solar, hydroelectric, or gas, will also need to be supported.
The Government indicates that local communities which host renewable energy infrastructure should benefit from it. It will be interesting to see how this is put into action.
Communities should rightly benefit from hosting local renewable energy infrastructure and that is why we will shortly publish an update to the Community Benefits Protocol for Onshore Wind in England.
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