UK ‘falling behind’ on onshore wind targets

Planning authorities in the UK are approving less than half of the onshore wind capacity that the country will need to install each year to achieve the country’s net zero targets, according to the renewables industry.

The UK’s official climate advisers calculated the need to install up to 35 gigawatts of onshore wind capacity by 2035 as part of the drive to hit the UK’s net zero emissions target by 2050. The UK has about 14GW of onshore wind, with most installed in Scotland.

But a report by the trade body RenewableUK published on Wednesday is likely to add to concerns among energy and green groups about the UK’s progress towards its net zero goal.

It found that planning authorities are approving on average just over 600 megawatts a year, well short of the 1.25GW needed to remain on track to hit the UK’s climate goals.

Last week, the government set a more ambitious target of a “zero carbon” electricity system by 2035, which was described by energy analysts as “extremely challenging”.

In a bid to speed up the installation of more wind power, Kwasi Kwarteng, business secretary, is considering holding annual government contract auctions, according to people familiar with his thinking. The auctions, which are key to the financing of renewable schemes by guaranteeing developers an agreed price per unit of electricity generated over 15 years, are currently held every two years.

Onshore wind developers complain that despite a healthy pipeline of projects, poor resourcing at the local authority level and a “lack of clarity” from central governments about the approach it wants planners to take has meant that the approval process is often slow.

Planning regimes for onshore wind vary in each UK nation. In England, Rebecca Murray, senior planner at Friends of the Earth, said that onshore wind was still heavily restricted in national planning policy.

In contrast in Scotland, ministers have committed to making changes to the planning system to deliver a “significant” expansion in onshore wind. “If we want a cleaner future we have to invest in it,” Murray said.

RenewableUK, whose members include France’s EDF and Spanish-owned ScottishPower, is pressing UK ministers to set a target of 30GW of onshore wind by 2030 to show their clear support for the technology.

Matthieu Hue, chief executive of EDF Renewables, said that setting the target would “make sure that people understand the contribution that onshore wind can bring”.

Boris Johnson, prime minister, has set a goal to quadruple offshore wind capacity to 40GW by the end of the decade but building wind farms at sea is more expensive and challenging than doing so on land.

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Onshore wind projects boomed in the middle of the past decade, helped by government subsidies. But, when he was prime minister, David Cameron went cold on land-based turbines after coming under pressure from many of his own Conservative backbench MPs. In 2016, he ended the subsidies for wind farms on land.

Johnson has since reversed that decision and, as a result, onshore wind will be able to bid in a government contract auction in December for the first time in five years.

But some politicians remain cautious. Liam Kerr, energy spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said it would be “wrong to green light every onshore wind farm application without also considering potential detriments to businesses, communities and local landscapes”.

Nathan Bennett of RenewableUK, insisted that attitudes towards land-based turbines had changed, citing polling by Survation that showed that 70 per cent of people in the UK agreed that the local planning system should “broadly encourage” onshore wind.

The government said that, alongside other renewables, onshore wind would have “an important role to play in helping us to decarbonise the UK’s whole electricity system by 2035”.