Responding to the Government's Clean Power 2030 plan , CEO of pro-growth campaign
group Britain Remade, said:
“A clean power grid by 2030 is possible but only if we speed up
Britain's planning system and fix the grid backlogs.
“When it comes to building the new sources of clean and renewable
energy it shouldn't take 11 years to build an onshore wind farm
and get it connected to the grid, 13 years to deliver one
offshore or nearly 5 years to plan, build, and connect a new
solar farm. An entire offshore wind farm can be built in just 2
years and installing a solar farm takes just weeks. Time and time
again it is our slow and outdated planning system that is holding
us back from rapidly building what we need.
“The Government's plan to deliver its pledge of a clean grid by
2030 is incredibly welcome news and will make a difference -
especially scrapping the “first-come-first served” queueing
system for grid connections and instead prioritising the most
important projects. The next step is for ministers to urgently
publish the Planning and Infrastructure Bill so that Britain can
finally get building.”
Responding to the government's new clean power plan, which will
set out how it will decarbonise the grid by 2030,
Greenpeace UK's policy director, Doug Parr,
said:
“The winds of change are finally blowing in the right direction.
But this roadmap must treble the amount of power generated by
offshore wind and solar and double onshore wind, at least, if
it's to deliver the kind of ambition needed to turbocharge our
way to a renewably powered future.
“As well as making the UK cleaner and greener this plan should
fuel a surge in renewables supply chain jobs and so be celebrated
by industry and campaigners alike.
“However, a plan for clean power cannot continue to rely on
destructive biomass, or extend the life of climate-wrecking oil
and gas by assigning capacity to carbon capture and
storage.
“Any money earmarked for CCS - which is expensive, impossible to
make zero carbon and fails to detach electricity prices from the
volatile international gas market - would be better spent on the
renewables, grid and storage infrastructure that will actually
deliver clean power.”
