The Chancellor’s Autumn budget is a missed opportunity for the UK government to back renewable energy and clean growth, according to trade groups.
The budget lacked clarity on a number of issues facing the industry including alternative support for decarbonising heat post 2020/21, support for less developed technologies and a government-supported route to market, said the Renewable Energy Association (REA).
The government is also freezing the carbon price support rate in order to lower the carbon price floor. REA said this could be detrimental to the renewables industry, with the potential of coal being reintegrated back into the UK’s energy mix.
However, the REA welcomed the government’s plans to introduce a tax on the production and import of plastic as well as the £20m pledged to reducing plastic waste and boosting recycling.
The REA is also disappointed with the withdrawal of the Energy Capital Allowance for technologies on the Energy Technology List and Water Technology List from April 2020 to be channelled into an ‘Industry Energy Transformation Fund’.
REA policy and external affairs director James Court said: “It is frustrating that another Budget comes and goes, yet the opportunity for the UK to be a genuine leader in crucial future technologies slips by.
“There is huge support for renewables across the country, parliament, and even within government, yet the Treasury continues to stymie the potential growth in this sector.
“Next to nothing in this budget will help build clean energy infrastructure we so desperately need, and in parts actively harms the industry. Carbon Prices frozen, tax allowances for energy products scrapped, and a continued block to market for the cheapest forms of electricity.”
Solar Trade Association chief executive Chris Hewett said: “Investment in renewable energy has plummeted in the UK and largely for want of fair tax and market treatment. The Chancellor has again missed a vital opportunity to do the right thing, not only by the planet and the thousands of people who want to support clean energy, but by simple fair market principles.”
Hewett added: “This government claims to support clean, green technologies, but this rhetoric is far from being matched by even the most modest of actions. Solar is the biggest clean energy market in the world today and by putting obstacles in the path of this technology the Government is frustrating the urgent energy transition and putting British industries at a disadvantage in global clean energy markets.”