Victoria Stratford is a student at the University of Essex, due to graduate in 2025.
Sir Keir Starmer’s government has made an array of promises since taking office, but in one area they have definitely hit the ground running: the de facto ban on new onshore wind farms in England, introduced in 2015, has gone. As of the July 8, onshore wind projects will be subject to the same regulations as any other energy infrastructure project.
In her first speech since taking office, Rachel Reeves committed to double the onshore wind capacity in Britain by 2030 and increase energy independence; now that the ban is lifted, Labour hopes to reach this target by 2030.
That’s all well as good. But as anyone familiar with our planning system knows, lifting an outright ban is no guarantee that new projects will actually get taken forward. Plenty of things which aren’t banned in theory don’t get built.
On energy, the auguries aren’t promising. Between 2018 and 2023, over 60 per cent of renewable energy project applications did not advance through the planning stage due to complaints or long wait times leaving them forgotten about. Cornwall Insight’s Renewables Pipeline Tracker noted that 63% of energy projects were either abandoned, refused, withdrawn, or expired without further action.
It isn’t all bad news: solar farm approval rates hit record levels in 2022, with almost 4GW of new capacity approved in the first eight months of the year alone. But the broader picture suggests that scrapping two footnotes in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) – wherein lay the onshore wind moratorium – is necessary, but not sufficient, to actually securing new power generation.
That isn’t to say it won’t help. Previously, onshore wind farms had to be included in any local development plan and any opposition to the development of such projects could see the plan scrapped. Now such projects will be treated the same as other projects, able to be taken forward individually outside a local plan.
After that, however, Reeves will have a lot of work to do if she wants to hit her targets.
First, the Government is going to have to fund the new wind farms. Initial costs for onshore wind infrastructure can be high, meaning that government subsidies may be needed to make these projects viable – tricky, at a time of stretched departmental budgets.
Then there’s the political challenge. Property values in the areas surrounding the wind farms may decrease after the installation due to visual and noise disturbances. With Labour now holding lots of rural seats – and a complete transformation in political ownership of the Green Belt – the Chancellor might encounter more backbench resistance than she might have with a smaller majority and more conventional political map.
Whilst public support for more onshore wind farms is at 78 per cent, how much of this is “more wind yes, but not here”? As with housing, it’s one thing to support renewable energy in principle, another to accept it on your own doorstep.
This is reflected in the extremely long lead-in times for onshore wind developments. It currently takes 13 years to develop a new wind farm, with up to four of those years spent battling through the planning stages.
Labour has announced a consultation on whether to include larger onshore wind projects in the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP), which would enable decisions to be made at a national level through a fast-tracked process. But even then you need the political will to actually do it; Conservative ministers had 14 years to use NSIP powers to push through the Abingdon Reservoir and failed to do so, even though it was in a Liberal Democrat constituency.
It’s at least a chance for Ed Miliband to show leadership. The Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary faces protests in his own constituency over the proposed 536-hectare Fenwick Solar Farm. Will he face them down – or pull a few strings to block it? If the latter, his backbenchers will have no reason not to do the same up and down the country.
Then there’s all the other infrastructure projects that also need to be delivered to make the Government’s plans viable. At present, over 100GW of wind power projects are awaiting approval – and their grid connection assessment. Labour made a hazy pledge to “rewire Britain” in its manifesto – will that persuade its backbenchers to face down local opposition and vote for the up to 460,000km of new onshore cables that industry estimates Net Zero may require?
What about financing. Per the FT, those new cables – just the cabling – could cost up to £350 billion. That’s a lot of pressure on ‘Great British Energy’. Reeves has talked about unlocking private investment, but this might devolve into another round of Private Finance Initiatives, infamously a way of borrowing capital on bad terms to front-load spending.
This isn’t a counsel of despair. Last year, despite everything, onshore and offshore wind supplied almost 30 per cent of Britain’s electricity – a record. A further 32 per cent was generated by gas-fired power stations 14 per cent from nuclear. Indeed, this country already number one in Europe when it comes to sustainable energy, thanks to the previous Conservative governments and big investments in (offshore) wind.
Labour wants to go much further: doubling onshore (15GW to 30GW) and quadrupling offshore wind (15GW to 60GW) by 2030, in pursuit of its higher objective of completely decarbonising the grid by the same date.
But doing that will require overcoming a host of challenges – regulatory, financial, and political – that have bedevilled ministers for decades, all whilst presiding over the most marginal House of Commons (in terms of seat majorities) since 1945. We shall only have to wait for the King’s Speech to see if Starmer and Reeves have given themselves any chance of success.