Energy bill risks onshore wind investment jitters, warns industry

The UK’s renewables industry has warned Government that its planned energy bill could risk investor confidence in onshore wind.

The Queen’s speech confirmed Government’s plans to legislate a shift in the regulation of large onshore wind farms from the Department of Energy and Climate Change to local planning authorities. But RenewableUK said that singling out one energy technology “sends a worrying message to investors”.

SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies added that as one of the UK’s biggest renewable energy investors the firm intends to work with government to ensure the new mandate “meets climate change commitments cost-effectively, maintains investor confidence and retains the wider economic benefits that investment in renewable energy brings”.

But RenewableUK chief executive Maria McCaffery said the trade body has “concerns” over possible delays to planning applications in the hands of local planning authorities.

“It is very important that local authorities are given full support and resourcing to enable them to make swift decisions,” McCaffery said.

Energy Networks Association chief executive David Smith also warned that the changes around onshore wind “could risk introducing a level of instability for network planning and it is important that this is avoided”.

The government’s plans to curtail subsidy payments to onshore wind farms will not form part of the bill, but will be handled separately by the government which PwC’s head of renewables Ronan O’Regan said “is the more pertinent issue for onshore wind”.

“This will have a bigger bearing on the industry who will want early clarity on what ‘new subsidies’ means and whether this will apply across all of the UK including Scotland. We may see more on this in the Budget in July,” O’Regan said.