Contributors
Chris Towner, Partner and commercial specialist in the energy sector at Womble Bond Dickinson, joined Finlay McCutcheon, Director for Onshore Renewables at SSE Renewables, and Ed Reed, Editor at Energy Voice, for the fifth episode of the Bigger, Faster, Better podcast series from Energy Voice. You can listen to the episode here.
Together, they explored the challenges and opportunities for the UK and Europe in rolling out more wind plans.
Onshore wind plans - who's ahead and who's behind?
The UK’s offshore wind plans tend to hog the limelight, but onshore wind can also play a part in achieving the net zero goal of 2050.
Onshore wind had been on an upwards trajectory until 2015, when the government changed the rules and gave more powers to communities. As a result, progress has been slow in the subsequent years.
There is some new political support for change, though - driven not least by the energy crisis linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
One of the early challenges for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak came in November, when a consortium of Conservative MPs – including the other two prime ministers that served in 2022 – came out in favour of relaxing the rules.
Despite these changes, there remains an ambivalence in government over this support. While England and Wales have been challenging, Scotland has been much more welcoming.
Finlay McCutcheon said the policy environment in Scotland was more welcoming, highlighting the role of communities:
“We definitely see local support for onshore wind because communities, particularly in rural areas, have seen the benefit of what is now millions of pounds of community benefits from the industry.”
England, given its population density, will always pose greater challenges in terms of finding space for turbines and bringing local communities along, he explained.
However, industry polling does demonstrate higher levels of support for new onshore wind construction. A recent poll showed 79% of people supporting such developments, while only 4% oppose it.
Political support
During the podcast, Chris Towner raised the question:
“If the overall aim is to deliver net zero at the lowest cost to the consumer, why wouldn’t you be using onshore wind more than we currently are?”
This political uncertainty extends into the windfall tax. Towner said these were designed to provide allowances to offset capital expenditure for North Sea oil and gas projects.
He said:
“You might actually see relatively low amounts of windfall tax being paid by some of the large North Sea developers."
There are no such allowances for electricity generators, who also face these windfall taxes. This brings to the fore questions around the competition for investment, between fossil fuels and renewables.
The events of 2022 served as a dramatic reminder of how exposed Europe is to imported energy, Finlay stated:
“The case for indigenous energy has increased very significantly.”
The anti-onshore renewables movement in England in particular has been “extreme”, he continued, and lagging wider European support for renewables.
Grid connections
Building generation closer to demand is an attractive proposition as it avoids much of the challenge around building new grid connections. An offshore wind farm in the North Sea may require 25% of its budget to go on grid costs, Chris explained.
Furthermore, while there is less community disquiet over offshore wind turbines, there are challenges around the onshore infrastructure required to support these.
As such, offshore wind does not stand up as a panacea to the UK’s energy challenges.
“Onshore wind is clearly a firmly established technology these days and so therefore should be more investable.”
Finlay agreed that while offshore wind developments may take ten years or more – onshore projects would move much faster.
This article was first published by Energy Voice.
This article is part of Womble Bond Dickinson’s Growing Global series. For more insights, click here to visit our Growing Global hub.
