The UK will aim for 95% clean power by 2030, down from a Labour party pledge of “zero carbon electricity” by the end of the decade, UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said in a speech on a so-called Plan for Change on Thursday.
Weeks after Labour came to power in early July, the UK’s Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said the government’s pledge is to have the UK power grid decarbonized by 2030 and “to make Britain a clean energy superpower with zero carbon electricity by 2030.”
Compared to the Labour Party manifesto and the government’s previous ambition for Great Britain to be supplied with clean power by 2030, Starmer now sees the clean energy goals as milestones. In electricity supply, the government now will aim to be “on track to have at least 95% clean power by 2030,” the PM said.
The new milestone brings the Labour goal closer to that of the previous government of the Conservative Party, which had aimed for 95% clean power by 2030 and 100% by 2035.
Earlier this year, analysts said that the UK is poised to miss its ambitious target to decarbonize its power sector by 2030 even as it is boosting solar and wind developments.
As part of its efforts to boost clean energy, the UK government lifted the de facto ban on onshore wind, which has been in place in England since 2015.
The government has committed to doubling onshore wind energy by 2030, quadrupling offshore wind, and trebling solar power by the end of the decade.
While Britain has made progress in recent years in decarbonizing the grid and boosting the share of renewables in the power mix to a record high, it still uses a lot of natural gas for electricity generation, home heating, and boilers.
Last month, the National Energy System Operator (NESO), warned in a report that Britain’s transition to a low-carbon energy system is fraught with challenges, including the need for massive investments in transmission and demand pattern changes.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
