People’s Power - Labour announces plan for offshore windfarms with public stake
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Today Shadow BEIS Secretary Rebecca Long Bailey will announce
Labour’s plans to build 37 new offshore wind farms with a 51%
publicly owned stake. Offshore wind prices fell by 30% last
week and there are more offshore wind farms installed in the UK
than any other country. But deployment is still too slow, and all
sites are owned by private and foreign public firms, taking jobs
and revenue out of the UK. This is despite wind being a
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Today Shadow BEIS Secretary Rebecca Long Bailey will announce Labour’s
plans to build 37 new offshore wind farms with a 51% publicly
owned stake.
Offshore wind prices fell by 30% last week and there are
more offshore wind farms installed in the UK than any other
country. But deployment is still too slow, and all sites are
owned by private and foreign public firms, taking jobs and
revenue out of the UK. This is despite wind being a common
resource.
Under the ‘People’s Power
Plan', Labour will deploy clean power at the
scale and pace needed to deal with the climate emergency. This
means delivering 52GW of offshore wind by 2030, equivalent to
38 coal power stations. Labour's new wind farms will be enough
to provide electricity for 57 million households.
A 'People's Power Fund' will
be created from 20% of all profits from the publicly owned
stake, investing between £600 - £1,020 million each year into
‘bricks and mortar’ infrastructure in held-back coastal
communities such as harbour fronts, leisure centres, libraries
and parks.
The remaining 80 per cent of public profits will be
reinvested into new renewables generation, improvements to the
wider energy system and climate transition.
Labour’s Regional Energy Agencies will be responsible for
owning, developing and operating a 51% public stake in new
offshore wind farms - similar to the role of public energy
companies in Belgium, Germany and Denmark. Labour's plans will
lead to a total of £83bn of government and private sector
funding being invested along the UK coastline, in partnership
with private and foreign public companies.
The People's Power Plan will create at least 67,000 new
unionised high-skilled jobs in the offshore wind sector, with
particular concentrations in Scotland, Yorkshire & Humber,
East Anglia and North-East England.
Commenting on Labour’s ‘People’s Power’ plan
Shadow BEIS Secretary Rebecca Long Bailey
said:
“Britain has
long benefited from its windy shores,
with the wind playing an essential role in our history as a
seafaring nation. Our wind will soon become our largest energy
source.
“While UK’s offshore wind industry is still young, the UK
has the opportunity to avoid replicating Britain’s experience
with North Sea Oil and instead to learn from countries such as
Norway and Sweden by owning what is already ours.
“By taking a stake in offshore wind, we can collectively
benefit from the profits, investing them back into our held
back coastal communities. That wind will turn into harbour
fronts and libraries. Instead of jackets for wind farms located
in Scotland being made in Indonesia, we’ll bring those jobs
back to Fife.
“As part of our Green Industrial Revolution - we
can tackle the climate emergency and create a better economy
for us all.”
Notes to Editors
• Today, the UK already has significant offshore wind
farms – more than any other country https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/these-3-countries-are-global-offshore-wind-powerhouses/
• The development and operation of offshore wind farms is
entirely run by foreign publicly-owned entities alongside
international and domestic private companies.
• Of around ~10GW of offshore wind under construction or
operational:
o 51% is owned by foreign public entities like Ørsted
from Denmark, Vattenfall from Sweden and Masdar from
UAE.
o 42% is owned by foreign private companies like
Iberdrola-ScottishPower from Spain, Innogy from Germany and
Maquarie from Australia
o 7% is owned by UK private companies like SSE and
Centrica.
o And there is a single offshore turbine owned by the
Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult.
• This has led to frustration that new offshore wind
farms create limited benefits for local communities and too few
jobs. Migrant workers on the Beatrice wind farm in Scotland
were paid below the minimum wage.
• The 'Fife – Ready for Renewal' campaign run by the
Scottish TUC, GMB and Unite has challenged EDF's decision to
build the enormous foundations for its new Neart Na Gaoithe
wind farm not in manufacturing yards in Fife in view of the
wind farm, but in Indonesia 7,000 miles away.
• Sweden, Norway and Denmark have each developed
successful publicly-owned national industrial champions to take
advantage of the offshore wind boom.
• Denmark’s Ørsted (previously DONG) owns over 30% of the
UK’s offshore wind, and is the largest offshore developer in
the world.
• Norway’s Equinor (formerly Statoil) is at the forefront
of developing new technology such as floating wind and building
an industrial future for Norway beyond oil.
• Norway’s Oil Fund also demonstrated the importance of
taking a public stake in offshore energy resources, rather than
privatising the assets and losing control over future revenue
stream.
• Municipal energy companies in German cities like Munich
and Darmstadt have become large-scale offshore wind developers,
returning revenues to local services in their home cities.
Stadtwerke München owns 30% of the Gwynt y Môr windfarm off the
Welsh coast.
• People's Power will be financed through joint venture
partnerships between Regional Energy Agencies and existing
offshore wind developers. A total of £83 billion will be
invested between 2020 and 2030, with £6.2 billion from
NTF-provided equity capital, a further £6.2 billion in equity
capital invested by the REAs, £12.5 billion invested by private
sector partners in equity capital, and £58 billion in
limited-recourse project finance from the private
sector.
• 37 new wind farms is based on an average 1.1GW per wind
farm.
• Generation equivalent to the consumption of 57 million
homes is based on 41GW of new offshore wind generating 208.9
TWh per year, and 3,600 kWh annual consumption per
household.
• Added to existing 11GW from offshore wind this will
total 52GW by 2030.
• 52GW is equivalent to 38 coal plants is based on 1.37
GW per coal plant.
• Labour will make the Regional Energy Agencies powerful
industrial actors - learning from the success of public
companies across Europe. As well as offshore wind, the REAs
will own and run our electricity and gas distribution networks,
install solar on 1.75 million homes, and deliver a mammoth
electric charging expansion for electric vehicles.
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