Today I have announced the award of 8 new contracts for renewable electricity projects which will provide around £12 billion of private sector investment and once built will contribute around 4% of Britain’s electricity capacity.
These projects will support 8500 jobs and our overall electricity reform plans will generate over 200,000 green jobs. These projects and the jobs created will be across Britain – from the Moray Firth to Liverpool Bay and from Teesside to Norfolk.
Five of the projects are for offshore wind power generation – further reinforcing the UK’s No 1 position for offshore wind capacity and investment.
They will also contribute to our energy security and will further protect the UK from international jolts in the energy market. Most importantly these projects will decrease our carbon emissions so helping us to tackle climate change.
This is a massive vote of confidence by investors in Britain’s transition to a low carbon economy and in the coalition government’s electricity market reforms which give companies the long term certainty they need to invest. It is this confidence in the UK which has already led Siemens to commit to investing in two factories in Hull and which will lead to supply chain jobs created throughout the UK.
Today’s announcements alone represent well over a quarter of total UK infrastructure investment committed so far this year. Investment in energy infrastructure is almost 60% of total UK planned infrastructure investment and is taking place throughout the UK. I have also published today a summary investment report. This shows that we have secured record levels of investment since 2010 with £45 billion of private investment.
It gives the lie to the claims of our critics in Labour and on the Tory climate change denying right that our energy policies will not deliver the investment that is needed to tackle climate change and energy security.
So great was the interest in these contracts that several projects have been unsuccessful and will now need to seek Contracts for Difference through future allocation rounds.. That is also good news for consumers as the more interest there is in our Contracts for Difference the sooner we can expect auctions to drive down costs for consumers
When put alongside the two pathfinder Carbon Capture and Storage projects in Scotland and Yorkshire, the planned new nuclear power plant at Hinkley Point and our ambitious energy efficiency strategy this shows that the Liberal Democrats in government are delivering the greenest government ever. That is good news for our climate, our economy and jobs.
* Ed Davey is the MP for Kingston & Surbiton and Leader of the Liberal Democrats
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7 Comments
All very good until you get to the last paragraph where hidden away is ” Hinkley C “the illegally subsidised new nuclear reactor that Ed Davey wants a Chinese/French consortium to build.
Climate change deniers are one thing,
Chernobyl Deniers and Fukushima Deniers are just as dangerous.
All very well green but green tooooooo expensive and wont solve our energy needs and as for environment negligible UK wise and minuscule world wise
@Terry – The era of cheap energy has gone – from whatever source.
My solar PV generates double what my house uses. OK is doesn’t generate much mid November to mid Feb but surely that is when available wind and wave energy are at their peak. None of these options are cheap but all are somewhat cheaper than the highly subsidised nuclear option highlighted by John Tilley. As pointed out by Ed Davey renewables (and waste reduction) are significant job creators pound for pound of investment. Every kWh saved and generated from renewables is one we don’t need to generate from imported or fracked gas or potentially lethal nuclear. And if you want to talk about costs any idea about the cost of losing much of our low-lying grade1 agricultural land and relocating millions of people from our coastal cities due to raised sea levels? And finally what cost a major nuclear incident?
For people who think nuclear is a cheap or green way to generate electricity ask yourself why since 26th April 1986 the UK Government has made payments of millions of pounds to UK sheep farmers.
The answer is 3,000 miles away in Chernobyl where an accident at the nuclear plant resulted in contamination in the Lake District in the UK . Link below to the full story but here are a couple of key facts that the Chernobyl Deniers would like to hide behind the “greenwash” about nuclear.
2009 Guardian report on Chernobyl radiation in Lake District 1986 – 2009
Since 1986, the UK government has paid out more than £14.3 million in compensation to UK farmers.
The total cost in one year 2008 – both the compensation payments and the monitoring – came to £725,000, according to FSA (Food Standards Agency).
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/dec/29/sheep-farmers-chernobyl-meat-restricted
The impact on Ukrainian people, farmers etc has of course been much greater. The exclusion zone is enormous, the deaths and deformities continue to this day, the costs are immense, but when discussing new nuclear nobody in the governmentlikes us to talk about these inconvenient facts. Let’s all pretend that this government is green by denying Chernobyl ever happened and never allowing it to be spoken about in connection with Hinkley C.
Can someone ‘moderate’ my earlier comment – and for goodness sake done something about the filter that doesn’t like any variant of fracking
I’ve been reading some papers and it is clear the government is using the guaranteed price to drive down energy prices, by taking the risk premium. This is standard financial theory and not a government handout.
The method to do this is through the CFDs (contracts for differences). EDF sell on the market and they reimburse the government if the market price is higher than the strike price. Likewise the government reimburse EDF is the market price is lower.
At first I was nervous because I never understood why a CFD was being used, rather than simply a fixed price, but it seems that this is because the consumer buys direct from the energy company, so it would be inefficient to put the government there as third party.
I think I’ve got it right. Complicated stuff, but that is the nature of financial insurance.
Nuclear isn’t cheap, it’s just consistent rather than variable. It’s also concentrated at fixed points rather than being dotted about.
It appeals to people who don’t like the idea that we should take responsibility for our energy use (and I hold up my hands and say I certainly am not doing enough either, I’m just not childish enough to resent being reminded of this), not just make a few token efforts like switching a couple of lightbulbs, but really accept the consequences of needing to live within our means energy wise. Nuclear allows us to not make any effort and continue using more and more energy without worrying about CO2 or blackouts.