Labour’s clean energy targets may already be in jeopardy just weeks after the party came to power with the promise to quadruple Britain’s offshore wind power, according to senior industry executives.
The offshore wind industry has said there will not be enough time to develop the projects needed to create a net zero electricity system by the end of the decade unless ministers increase the ambition and funding of the government’s upcoming “make or break” subsidy auctions.
A delay to Labour’s planned renewable energy rollout – which calls for a doubling of onshore wind, tripling of solar power and quadrupling of offshore wind capacity – would also risk derailing Britain’s legally binding climate ambition to be net zero overall by 2050.
“It’s crunch time,” said Damien Zachlod, managing director of the UK arm of the German energy company EnBW. “How close we get to the government’s 2030 offshore wind target…
