Climate Change Minister Claire Perry today confirmed the Government will look to provide support for onshore wind, as she faced a grilling from MPs over the UK’s ability to achieve its mid-term decarbonisation goals. Speaking in front of a BEIS select committee this morning (28 November), Perry said the UK would likely be “pretty close” to hitting the fifth carbon budget, which aims to limit the annual emissions to 57% below 1990 levels by the year 2032. The UK is on course to outperform on the second and third budgets. However, it is not on track to meet the fourth, and Perry confirmed that policy measures set out in the recently launched Clean Growth Strategy only account for 93-94% of the reductions required for the fifth budget.
Edie 28th Nov 2017 read more »
Officials at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) are “actively working” on a plan to allow large onshore wind farms to be built once again in Wales and Scotland. Climate Change Minister Claire Perry told the BEIS Committee today that onshore wind is “absolutely a part of the future” energy mix, despite her party’s previous manifesto commitments to block the development of large farms across much of the UK. “We have a manifesto commitment on which we were elected to not have any large scale onshore wind farms in England,” she said. “I am very aware there are other parts of the country where there is planning consent for, and an opportunity to provide, onshore wind.” She explained that under current ‘State Aid’ rules, the government is unable to discriminate against projects based on their geography during a competitive auction process, but she revealed officials were working on ways to potentially circumvent the issue. The case for deploying the technology – which remains the cheapest form of clean energy generation – has been bolstered in recent days by auctions in Germany, which saw costs fall another 10 per cent to €38 per MWh. Writing on Twitter, Greenpeace’s Doug Parr noted that if similar prices could be achieved in the UK onshore wind projects could significantly undercut wholesale power prices of around £40/MWh.
Business Green 28th Nov 2017 read more »
The German grid regulator BNetzA has awarded 1000.4MW of grid capacity for 61 onshore wind projects at an average support price of €38.2 a megawatt hour (MWh) in the country’s latest auction. Sixty of the 61 projects are community wind farms, representing 98% of the total number of projects and 99.2% of the capacity auctioned.
Renews 22nd Nov 2017 read more »
