UK Shadow Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has pledged to ramp up offshore wind and other forms of renewable power should the Labour Party win the 2024 general election.
Miliband told delegates at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool he was proud that Keir’s 2030 mission is for the “greatest investment in homegrown energy in British history”.
“We’ll double onshore wind. We’ll treble solar. We’ll quadruple offshore wind.
“We’ll invest in nuclear and hydrogen and carbon capture and tidal power.
“That’s the new Britain we can build together.”
Labour’s plans for a state-backed energy developer would ensure that the country maximises opportunities to retain an offshore wind supply chain on UK shores.
Other countries own nearly half of the nation’s offshore wind, via state-owned energy companies, “because they know it creates jobs and wealth for them”.
Miliband said: “A key industry of the future is floating offshore wind. But just get this: under the Tories our largest floating wind farm wasn’t built in Britain.
“It was built in Spain, assembled in the Netherlands and then was towed into place off the Scottish coast.
“I say: not under Labour. GB Energy will invest in floating wind so Britain can lead the world.”
He added that a national wealth fund will invest, alongside the private sector, in “our ports, hydrogen and saving our steel industry and communities”.