Labour net-zero blueprint calls for 9,000 new wind turbines by 2030

More than half of the UK’s electricity needs should be supplied from wind power by 2030, according to a radical new decarbonisation blueprint drawn up for the Labour Party.

The document 30 by 2030, which has been prepared by a team of energy academics and experts for the opposition, lays out detailed proposals for a fast track plans, with 30 recommendations.

Labour’s annual conference last month backed a motion committing the party to work towards cutting emissions to net zero by 2030, 20 years ahead of the government’s own target.

The new report stops short of complete decarbonisation by the end of the next decade, instead urging the party to set a target that at least 90 per cent of non-transport electricity demand is met from renewable and low-carbon sources by 2030.

To help implement this goal, it recommends that onshore and offshore wind should combined provide 55 per cent of electricity generated in the UK, making it the “largest source of electricity” in the UK.

This would include a two-and-a-half-fold increase in current level of onshore wind capacity by 2030 to 30 GW with the installation of 2,000 new turbines.

And it says there should be nearly a seven-fold increase in the offshore wind capacity by 2030, or 52GW, equivalent to 7,000 large scale turbines.

Solar PV capacity, which should be tripled to 35GW, and wind should be the “dominant sources of electricity by 2030”, according to the report.

Gas-fired electricity generation should be cut by 72 per cent from 130 TWh today to 36 TWh in 2030 with remaining plants coupled with CCUS (carbon capture use and storage) technology.

The report also says there should be “at least one” medium scale tidal-lagoon demonstration scheme operating by the early 2020s, an expansion of tidal stream to at least 1GW by 2030 and a target to deliver around 2.5GW of CCUS capacity by the same date.

It says that existing nuclear plants, which are due to be decommissioning before 2030, will be replaced with equivalent capacity in order to maintain output at current levels.

It estimates that zero-carbon electricity could be achieved as early as 2034 and decarbonised heating by 2036.

The document proposes reducing domestic heat demand by 23 per cent through a programme to retrofit “almost all” of the UK’s 27 million homes to the “highest energy efficiency standards feasible” for particular building.

This would be implemented by retrofitting as many homes as possible to EPC (energy performance certificate) level A or B by 2030, with EPC C the targeted minimum.

For new build homes, the paper says a zero-carbon buildings standard should be reintroduced from 2020

In addition, all commercial, public and industrial buildings should reach at least EPC B standard by the mid-2020s.

It also recommends setting a target that half of all heating should be provided from renewable and low-carbon by 2030, a more than a twelve fold increase in output from today’s level.

And it says that the government’s proposed 2025 ban on fossil fuel heat systems in new build homes should be brought forward by five years, while opposing any expansion of current levels of biomass heating.

The report estimates that its recommendations would require an investment of 1.9 per cent of GDP each year, but that this ‘would be more than balanced by the resulting value added to the UK economy’, including the creation of 850,000 new jobs that would be distributed around the whole of the UK.

The report clams that household energy bills will not need to increase to pay for the proposed transformation, while also help to eradicate the 2.5m UK homes currently suffering fuel poverty.

And the document states that it will be possible to maintain the UK’s energy security despite the accelerated nature of decarbonisation that it proposes if there is sufficient investment in infrastructure and flexibility.

It says: “The lights will stay on. Advances in the technologies and solutions available for managing supply and demand of energy mean that it is feasible to support high levels of intermittent renewables from sources such as the wind and sun.

“Even a partial selection of the cost effective technical solutions available today to balance energy supply and demand would be more than sufficient to ensure the lights, and crucially heating systems, remain on whenever they are needed.”

Justin Bowden, national Secretary at the GMB trade union, said the report was a “serious attempt” to create a “practical plan” to tackle climate change.

“A plan to tackle climate change that not only meets the country’s future energy needs but will create quality jobs, whilst ensuring the costs of any green revolution are not loaded onto household energy bills but paid for by corporations and through progressive general taxation, is far more than anything any Tory government has ever offered.”