Labour: ‘No need’ for 12GW of nuclear generation by 2035

A government projection that the UK will need 12GW of new nuclear power by 2035 has been “superseded” by advances in other technologies, the shadow energy minister has claimed.

Alan Whitehead told an online seminar, organised this morning (29 April) by the New Nuclear Watch Foundation, that existing business, energy and industrial strategy (BEIS) department projections show that nuclear should supply 12GW of the 93 GW of new generation capacity that will be required by the middle of the next decade.

Whitehead said the government’s target for deploying 30GW of offshore wind by 2030, combined with progress on rolling out interconnectors and storage technology, means that this level of new nuclear generation will no longer be required.

“The projection that 12GW of new nuclear are needed has been superseded.

“There probably would be no need to place 12GW of nuclear onto the system over that period.”

He also said if nuclear projects are developed, the government should shoulder the development costs and then put them out to tender to operate.

“If the state decides to underwrite nuclear, it has to decide whether to put money into expensive nuclear or renewables and energy efficiency, possibly at a lower cost and with a much more certain outcome.

“The nuclear industry has to make clear to policy makers that issues facing nuclear have been resolved so that nuclear can play a large role.”

Whitehead, who was recently reappointed to the post of shadow energy minister by new Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, also said that in order to achieve the UK’s 2050 net-zero target the government cannot rely on the market to deliver solutions on its own.

As an example of the more active role that the government should play in energy policy and regulation, he pointed to how it had mandated the transition to more efficient, condensing gas boilers.

Similar decisions will be required around providing incentives for developing batteries and pump storage, he said.

But Kirsty Gogan, co-founder and executive director of Energy for Humanity, told the event that nuclear has a role to play in providing the power that will be needed to get hydrogen fuel production of the ground.

“Nuclear technology could make a very major contribution to parts of the decarbonisation problem that are very largely unsolved,” she said.

Martin Wright, chair of the Renewable Energy Association, said that nuclear and renewables are both low carbon technologies and should not seek to compete with one another. “The common goal is to end the use of fossil fuels in energy.”