Renewable Energy

(asked on 7th March 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans he has in place to ensure that the proportion of renewable resources in the UK's energy mix continues to increase year on year.


Answered by
 Portrait
Claire Perry
This question was answered on 15th March 2019

The UK Government has an excellent record of supporting renewables and around a third of UK electricity generation now comes from renewable projects. We announced up to £557 million of annual support for further Contracts for Difference (CfD) in the Clean Growth Strategy, published in October 2017. The next CfD allocation round for less established technologies, including offshore wind, is planned for May this year, and is expected to support the delivery of around 4GW of new renewable electricity capacity. The Government has announced it intends to hold subsequent CfD auctions every two years from 2021, which are expected to deliver 1-2GW of additional offshore wind each year in the 2020s. We are also investing £177 million to further reduce the cost of renewables, including innovation in offshore wind turbine blade technology and foundations.

The BEIS £505 million Energy Innovation Programme aims to accelerate the commercialisation of innovative clean energy technologies and processes into the 2020s and 2030s.

Full details about BEIS Energy Innovation Programme investments are available at: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/energy-innovation.

We have also consulted on a Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) to follow on from the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) scheme, which will close from 1 April 2019, and has contributed to driving down the cost of renewable electricity, including small-scale solar PV. The SEG will ensure that small-scale renewable generators do not export their electricity to the grid for free. The SEG consultation closed on the 5 March 2019 and we are currently considering the responses submitted. Government will respond in due course.

The consultation is available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/the-future-for-small-scale-low-carbon-generation.

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