Independent energy analysts at the Aurora consultancy yesterday forecast
that the first subsidy-free wind and solar-power plants will be built by 2025.
This is three years after the planned construction of the world’s first
subsidy-free offshore wind farm, which will be built in The Netherlands by
2022.
However, power chiefs at the Big McTwo – Perth-based utility SSE and
Glasgow-based Scottish Power – also pleaded again yesterday for new
subsidies for onshore wind farms.
Aurora analysts told an energy trade conference that wind power will
account for half of all subsidy-free renewables to be built in the UK
between now and 2030.
They said that the UK is well on the way to ‘a new era of subsidy-free
renewable energy’ projects that will largely kill off prospects for new gas
power stations, according to industry analysts.
Tom Glover of RWE UK commented: “The challenge for thermal is the absolute
step-change in flexibility required to balance intermittency of increasing
amounts of wind and solar. Batteries will help, as will biomass – but
there’s no one answer.
The falling cost of wind and solar projects combined with advances in
battery storage technology will unlock about £20 billion of investment in
the UK between now and 2030.
Aurora predicts that solar farms capable of generating up to 9 gigawatts
and onshore wind farms with a maximum output of 5 gigawatts are likely to
be built on this basis by 2030
And it claimed that onshore wind and solar will both be viable without
subsidies by 2025 in the UK.
Mateusz Wronski, an analyst at Aurora, said: “The subsidy-free revolution
is here – and it’s big.”
However, senior management at Scottish Power and SSE joined in calls for
the Brit-Govt to consider reversing the UK’s ban on subsidies for onshore
windfarms, saying developers of these projects should be allowed to compete
in auctions for subsidies.
Alistair Phillips-Davies, chief executive of SSE, said onshore windfarms
should be given a chance where communities support them. “I’d like to see
onshore wind coming back in the UK,” he added.
And Keith Anderson, chief corporate officer at Scottish Power, added:
“There are still areas where we could build onshore wind farms where the
local community are receptive to them.
“The CfD has done exactly what it was supposed to and slashed the
cost of onshore wind – and there’s still further to go. It ticks every box
of the industrial strategy and delivers cheaper power. If it ain’t broken,
don’t fix it!
“Nothing in the UK energy sector has been built without the support of
subsidies, including everything from the network to thermal generation and
nuclear.”
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