Rishi Sunak has reportedly pledged to keep the ban on building any new onshore wind farms in England if he wins the Tory leadership race and becomes the next prime minister.
According to The Daily Telegraph, the former chancellor would reverse Boris Johnson’s plan to relax the rules and let local communities agree to host turbines in return for cheaper electricity bills.
The Telegraph also reported that Sunak would introduce a legal target to make Britain energy self-sufficient by 2045 by overseeing a massive expansion in offshore wind.
David Cameron’s Government excluded new onshore wind farms from CfDs in 2016 and made planning laws tougher. The technology was later readmitted for this year’s allocation round.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng has been pushing for the effective ban on the sector to be overturned but, according to The Telegraph, more than 100 Tory MPs have privately lobbied No 10 against a change.
Sunak is currently the frontrunner in the Tory leadership race and is expected to be one of two candidates that the Conservative Party will chose from to be the next Prime Minister.
Sunak told The Telegraph: “Wind energy will be an important part of our strategy, but I want to reassure communities that as prime minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England, instead focusing on building more turbines offshore.”
RenewableUK’s head of public affairs Nathan Bennett said: “As we’ve seen in this month’s CfD auction, onshore wind has proved yet again that it’s one of our cheapest sources of new power.
“Politicians are acutely aware of the need to bring down bills fast by reducing the need for expensive gas, so no one should be ruling out low-cost solution like onshore wind – especially as new projects can be up and running within the space of a year – much faster than other technologies.
“And polling shows consistently that the overwhelming majority of people support building new onshore wind projects.”