Britain’s new Prime Minister Liz Truss has been urged to tackle the energy crisis by accelerating the buildout of renewable energy by industry associations.
RenewableUK and the REA have called on the new leader of the Conservative Party to accelerate the deployment to reduce energy bills.
Truss was elected party leader today, beating ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak to the post. She will become the next Prime Minister replacing Boris Johnson who is to step down.
RenewableUK said more renewables will boost the nation’s energy security.
Chief executive Dan McGrail said: “We’re looking forward to working with the new Prime Minister and her team to take forward new measures to reduce energy bills, both in the short term and the long term.
“Firstly, it’s vital that she should re-commit to the ambitious targets set out in the Government’s Energy Security Strategy, which will move us further and faster towards energy independence.
“That means more than quadrupling our offshore wind capacity to 50GW by 2030 – including 5GW of innovative floating wind. We need to remove the barriers in the planning system which are unnecessarily delaying offshore wind development, and upgrade our grid so that we can connect new offshore projects more quickly.”
He added now is the time to end the block on onshore wind development in England and set a new target for the sector.
“We know onshore wind projects can be up and running within a year of approval, providing the country with much needed low-cost clean energy, so we’re urging Liz Truss to pull out all the stops to encourage new projects to go ahead in areas where they have local support,” said McGreal.
Nina Skorupska, Chief Executive of the REA, also welcomed the election of Truss and said she looks forward to working with her closely to deliver the solutions to the energy crisis.
“We have been clear for some time – there needs to be substantive upfront support for households and businesses for the bills they will be required to pay, to help them get through an incredibly challenging winter.
“However, the root cause of the problem – the reliance on price volatile fossil fuels, particularly gas – needs to be tackled in parallel. That means accelerating the deployment of renewable energy; making homes and buildings more energy efficient; and providing real proactivity and focus to deliver well designed market reforms to protect consumers from the prices being seen in international fossil fuel markets.
“As we have warned throughout the leadership contest, knee jerk and ill-thought out cuts to renewable energy investment schemes will simply store up problems for the future, and save relatively little in the short-term.
“To deliver an energy future that is independent, secure and stable, we need to accelerate renewable energy deployment. That is how we solve this crisis.”