Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 11
11
Deferred
Paragraph: 60
Current bottlenecks risk stalling 50 GW offshore wind deployment by 2030.
Conclusion
The UK’s offshore wind sector is a success story. The Government has ambitious plans to scale up offshore wind deployment, maximising the potential of the UK’s natural resources. However, unless rapidly addressed, current bottlenecks in the process will stand in the way of the Government achieving its ambition for 50 GW of offshore wind to be deployed by 2030. While we commend the Government for the work being done to speed up the deployment of offshore wind, and to ensure local communities that host critical transmission infrastructure benefit from doing so, it is unfortunate that the Government is only now consulting in these areas.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government states it continues to assess the merits of a long-term target for tidal stream deployment and recognizes the need for tailored subsidy mechanisms for tidal range, subject to value for money and evidence from proposed schemes, rather than addressing offshore wind bottlenecks.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
60
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
20. The UK has a world-leading ambition to deploy up to 50GW of offshore wind power by 2030, with up to 5GW coming from floating offshore wind. Although the UK is a world leader in offshore wind, with the most installed capacity in Europe, the Government recognises there are still opportunities for accelerating the deployment of offshore wind in the context of the UK’s increased ambitions. The Offshore Wind Industry Council, chaired jointly by industry and the Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero, will bring together key stakeholders to support the continued development of the UK’s world-leading offshore wind sector. Work is already underway across government and industry to implement many of the UK Offshore Wind Champion’s key recommendations, and we will collaborate with a range of stakeholders to consider all of the recommendations in the report. 21. The Government is consulting on community benefits for network infrastructure, to ensure communities hosting transmission network infrastructure can benefit from supporting the delivery of cheaper, secure and low-carbon energy for all of Great Britain. The consultation, with a close date of 15th June 2023, proposes to introduce voluntary guidance on the appropriate levels and forms of benefits to give communities the knowledge, power and flexibility to decide what benefits they want in consultation with the project developer. 22. The Government will work with The Crown Estate to look at how better co-ordination of transmission links can be incorporated at the early stages of designing future seabed leasing rounds. This will join up with the wider, ongoing work on improving transmission co-ordination and marine spatial prioritisation. 23. Energy Trends is a quarterly statistical release that provides the official statistics for installed offshore wind capacity in the UK, split between fixed and floating offshore wind. The Government uses this to assess our current position compared to our 2030 ambitions.
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