Manifesto Round Up: What promises have been made to the offshore renewable sector by the future UK Government? (updated)

The incumbent party, the Conservatives has made little mention of the offshore renewable energy sector in its manifesto other than to acknowledge that the UK has the largest offshore wind market in the world and to claim the establishment of the Siemens factory in Hull as a major government success.

Despite this lack of attention to offshore renewables, the onshore sector has not been left out. One of the key pledges is to “halt the spread of subsidised onshore wind farms” and to “give local people the final say on onshore wind developments”. This is not a surprise for the onshore wind sector but bad news all the same.

The manifesto focuses very much on other areas of government interest such as housing, taxes and jobs. Considering the number of changes the energy sector has seen under this government, it may be a relief that more changes are not being planned although more support for the sector would have been welcomed.

RenewableUK, industry trade body, reacted angrily to the manifesto, calling the policy on onshore wind 'illogical and idiotic'. Read more

Conservative Manifesto 2015

Labour Manifesto

The Labour Party has very ambitious carbon reduction target of removing all carbon for the UK electricity supply by 2030. However, there is little detail on how it will achieve this other than a major energy efficiency drive to reduce demand and the creation of an Energy Security Board to plan and deliver the energy mix needed to meet demand. This would include renewables, nuclear, green gas, carbon capture and storage, and clean coal.

The manifesto also states that Labour would work to make Britain a world leader in low carbon technologies over the next decade, creating a million additional green jobs. It states that its industrial strategy for the green economy will end the current uncertainty for investors, with a timetable for the Green Investment Bank to be given additional powers so that it can invest in green businesses and technology.

Greater certainty would be welcomed by the offshore wind sector but references to the ‘broken’ energy market, indicates uncertainty. A key Labour’s pledge is to freeze energy prices for householders until 2017 and it states it wants to break up the major energy utilities. So would greater market certainty be preceded by further changes?

Labour Manifesto 2015

Liberal Democrats (Lib Dem)

The Liberal Democrat party claims to have trebled renewable energy generation during the last government (in coalition with the Conservatives). Its manifesto promised investment in more energy efficiency and continued support for low carbon investment in a bid to achieve its target of reducing energy demand by 50% by 2050.
It plans to set a legally-binding decarbonisation target range for 2030 for the power sector of 50-100g of CO2 per kWh, which will largely be achieved by expansion of renewable electricity, with an indicative target of 60% of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2030. The Liberal Democrats gives a small mentions offshore wind recognising the strength of the UK in this market.

The LibDems have committed to a less ambitious, and perhaps more realistic, green employment target than the Labour party, aiming to stimulate up to 250,000 jobs in the sector across the UK by 2020.

Interestingly, the Lib Dems have stated that they will "encourage onshore wind in appropriate locations, helping meet our climate targets at least cost." Also that they "will end ideologically motivated interference in local planning decisions for wind farms by Government Ministers." This is a very clear divide from the  Conservative attitude on onshore wind. .

While the LibDem approach seems somewhat more supportive of the renewable energy sector and low carbon economy, in the event of a coalition Government, would the party be willing give up these ambitions?

Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2015

UK Independence Party (UKIP)

Despite previous statements by Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP, that he planned to launch the party’s manifesto “as late as practically possible”, the party published its manifesto on 15 April, the same day as the Liberal Democrats and a day after the Conservatives.

Fortunately, there were no further unpleasant surprises for the renewable energy industry. The party is sticking with its policies on energy which include the scrapping of the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as well as stopping all new financial subsidies for renewable energy.

UKIP  states that it supports a diverse energy market including coal, nuclear, shale gas, geo-thermal, tidal, solar, conventional gas and oil. As wind is not mentioned, it is probably safe to assume that UKIP is not a supporter of the sector.   It might have more in common with the Conservatives than it would like to admit to.

UKIP Manifesto 2015

Green Party

The Green Party energy policy focuses on two strands. It looks to reduce energy demand through greater efficiency and to decarbonise the supply needed to meet final market demand. Similar to the Labour party, it has ambitious plans on the decarbonisation target, aiming for a 90% reduction by 2030.

Its policy is to accelerate the production of electricity from renewable sources by developing new capacity with a target of 40GW of renewable technology capacity by 2020. It sees wind as the major technology to deliver this capacity but does not identify the split between onshore and offshore. If the Greens were to be in power in the UK it would be very good news for the Tidal and Wave sectors as the Greens have pledged to support the rapid commercialisation of tidal stream and wave-powered generators to ensure they are able to contribute at least 5GW each by 2030, and a combined input of at least 20GW by 2050.

Like the German Government, the UK Green Party is not a supporter of the nuclear industry; it has committed to cancel the construction of all new nuclear power stations stating that “electricity from which is likely to be significantly more expensive per unit supplied than other low-carbon energy sources, and too slow to deploy to meet our pressing energy needs”.

Greens might be good for you and Green party energy policy could even be good for the renewable sector, much will depend how many Green MPs there will be in the next UK Government and whether they have any influence on future energy policy remains to be seen.

Green Party Manifesto