Public support for renewables steady despite rising bills

Support for renewable power has remained stable over the past three months, new government statistics show, even after a high-profile campaign blaming the rise in energy bills on the net-zero drive.

The winter edition of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) quarterly public attitudes tracker surveys on energy and climate change shows 86% support for the use of renewable power to provide electricity, fuel and heat.

This compares to a figure of 87% in the last quarter of 2021, which BEIS’ analysis describes as “stable”. The discrepancy was accounted for by a rise to 2% in the proportion of those who “don’t know” with no increase in the 1% of people who stated opposition to renewable energy.

Of the different renewable energy technologies, support was strongest for solar energy (90%). This was followed by wave and tidal energy (85%), offshore wind (84%), and onshore wind (80%).

Support was lowest for biomass (72%) out of all the renewable technologies specifically asked about.

The survey also shows the public are generally more positive than negative about nuclear energy with 48% agreeing that it provides a reliable source of energy in the UK and only nine per cent disagreeing.

The margin on whether nuclear power provides a safe source of energy was narrower, with 29% agreeing and 25% disagreeing. More than half (54%) of those surveyed had “never heard” of small modular reactors.

There was no change in the proportion (85%) of people expressing concern about climate change since the survey was last carried out in the autumn.

And the proportion of the public aware of net zero saw a “significant increase” from 87% in the autumn 2021 to 91% now with only 9% saying they were not aware of the concept, compared to 13% in the  previous survey.

The publication of the survey follows months of pressure on the government to shift its approach on cutting emissions from the Net Zero Scrutiny Group of Conservative backbench MPs and peers.