UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised once again to make a massive investment in offshore wind energy while speaking at the Conservative party conference. He said that by 2030, the renewable would provide electricity to every home in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.
He said:
Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle, the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands.
The goal is beyond ambitious. At the moment, the UK has 10GW of offshore wind online. To meet the new goal, it will have to generate a minimum of 40GW of energy. Before this recent announcement, the government had committed to a 30G target. However, Johnson promised last December that if he won the election, he’d increase that number to 40GW, which is what’s happening now.
The coronavirus pandemic hasn’t altered that goal at all. It may have smashed the UK economy and forced the government to spend obscene sums on job and industry protection schemes, but it hasn’t affected its green plans! Johnson said the government would invest million (roughly $207 million) in developing new ports and factories that can manufacture next-gen turbines. Floating turbines that deliver 1GW of offshore wind are also part of the deal.
Trade association RenewableUK’s CEO, Hugh McNeal, said:
The Government has raised the ambition for offshore wind and renewables, and our industry is ready to meet the challenge.
The wind energy industry is the UK’s prize jewel. It’s a grand success story with capacity growing from 1GW to nearly 10G in ten years and building costs dropping by almost two-thirds. The government’s new plan will be triple the success while helping the nation build back better after the COVID-19 crisis and reach its 2050 climate goals.
Of course, the prime minister’s grand green agenda still has multiple hurdles to overcome. For one, to power, every home with offshore wind energy would require one turbine to be installed every weekday from now until the end of the decade. According to Aurora Energy Research, an Oxford-based consultancy, the whole ordeal would cost almost £50bn in investment.
The firm said:
An average annual installation rate of 260 turbines will need to be sustained over five years, equivalent to one turbine installed every weekday throughout the whole of the 2020s.
Scottish Power is one of the largest investors in Britain’s renewable energy industry. Its CEO Keith Anderson said:
There is no shortage of capital or investor appetite in offshore wind, but the pace and scale of the industry’s growth will depend on the government’s ability to grant new seabed licenses and project contracts at record speed.
I am absolutely confident that the industry can achieve this. My only nervousness is that people will start to see the 40GW as a cap. We should achieve that and power past it. We are going to need far more clean electricity.
The government plans to host a major contract auction next spring to attract investment from the private sector. It will include support for offshore and onshore wind, as well as solar power projects. According to RenewableUK, the auction could secure over £20bn of investment and create 12,000 jobs, primarily in the construction sector.
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