The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has urged the UK government to rethink its renewables policy and offer a route to market for onshore wind in its annual progress report published today.
The statutory advisory body said the UK should take advantage of “simple, low cost options” like onshore wind to help meet legally-binding targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The ‘2018 Progress Report to Parliament’ calls for ministers to avoid a “poor deal for the public” by continuing to delay making policy decisions.
UK consumers are being penalised because “there is no route to market for cheap onshore wind”, it added.
RenewableUK executive director Emma Pinchbeck said: “Any politician who blocks onshore wind has to explain to voters why they’re being denied the lowest-cost power source.”
Aldersgate Group executive director Nick Molho said private sector investment and supply chain growth in onshore wind is being hampered by a lack of market mechanisms such as so-called subsidy-free Contracts for Difference.
The report reiterated the shortfall between current energy policies and the UK meeting its fourth and fifth carbon budgets.
Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit director Richard Black, director said: “The CCC said in January that ministers need to close that policy gap by the end of the year and – halfway through it – government has not enacted any new low-carbon measures.”
“Its report is remarkably explicit in advising reliance on simple, proven, low-cost options, including cutting energy waste and re-booting onshore wind.”
Image: UK Parliament
UK ‘should back cheap wind’
By EBS