MPs question credibility of low carbon generation goals

A heavyweight committee of MPs has expressed scepticism about the credibility of government plans for expanding low carbon generation.

The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has warned that the lack of an overarching delivery plan jeopardises government’s challenging ambition to decarbonise the power sector by 2035.

In its new report on Decarbonising the Power Sector, the committee raises concerns that the recently established Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) has lots of separate plans for decarbonising the power sector, but no “overarching, integrated and coherent” delivery plan.

The report calls on these numerous decarbonisation of power plans to be pulled together into an integrated, coherent delivery plan by autumn 2023 at the latest when the department has said it intends to publish a blueprint covering its entire portfolio of activities.

The committee says it is sceptical that the government’s highly challenging plans to expand nuclear to 24GW by 2050, solar to 70GW by 2035 and wind power to 50GW by 2030 are credible.

To put these figures into context, it says the UK’s current operating capacity is currently less than a quarter for each of these technologies.

For example, the committee points out that the government’s nuclear ambitions include small modular reactors, which it describes as a technology that is untested in the UK and “not operating at scale anywhere in the world”.

The report calls on DESNZ to provide annual updates to Parliament that demonstrate progress against milestones towards its generation goals and identify how significant risks are being mitigated.

It says a delivery plan would also provide confidence to the private sector, which has been eroded by recent energy policy instability, the introduction of the energy windfall tax and the stop-start nature of some initiatives, such as the Green Homes Grant voucher scheme.

The department should set out in its delivery plan how it will provide greater clarity to the private sector to encourage the investment required to decarbonise the power sector, the report adds.

The plan should also set out how DESNZ will work with other departments to fulfil its objectives, many of which rely on cross-governmental working, adding it is not clear the recently established ministry has the support it needs from other departments to achieve the government’s power sector decarbonisation ambitions.

The department should also set out in its delivery plan when and how the costs of decarbonising the power sector are likely to have an impact on energy bill payers and taxpayers.

Dame Meg Hillier MP, chair of the PAC, said: “Greening our economy is an existential priority, with the government setting itself the target of securing an entirely low-carbon power supply by 2035. But without a coherent delivery plan to get there, the government will find it harder to know what decisions it must take, and when, to ensure that it can realistically reach its ambitions.

“There are just twelve years left for the government to meet its low carbon energy target, and much still to do if this is to be achieved – and at a cost the taxpayers and bill payers can bear while ensuring the lights stay on.

“There is an information vacuum in key areas – energy efficiency, investment, the cost of the transition to the public – that must be addressed. We need an overarching plan charting the way, to provide much-needed confidence to the businesses and consumers who are needed to deliver it.

“When it comes to tackling the climate crisis, we can see around us, we are already living on borrowed time.”