Community Energy England today says in a statement that it believes the party’s plans published yesterday “have the potential to transform Britain’s energy system through local action on climate which benefits local people”.

Labour’s promises unveiled yesterday back the party’s earlier pledges towards local energy. They include making targeted energy grants to local authorities from a £600 million pot, and low interest loans made direct to community groups from a pool of £400 million.

The party’s manifesto for 4 July declares “Local power generation is an essential part of the energy mix and reduces pressures on the transmission grid. Labour will deploy more distributed production capacity through our Local Power Plan. Great British Energy will partner with energy companies, local authorities, and co-operatives to install thousands of clean power projects, through a combination of onshore wind, solar, and hydropower projects.

“We will invite communities to come forward with projects, and work with local leaders and devolved governments to ensure local people benefit directly from this energy production.”

In its statement Community Energy England endorses probable energy secretary Ed Miliband’s view that such backing can “kick-start thousands of transformational local energy project”.

“Labour’s Local Power Plan offers grants for local authorities and low interest loans for community energy organisations to do new local, community-led and owned clean energy projects“, the CEE’s statement says.

“Over five years, this could deliver 8 gigawatts of solar and onshore wind – the equivalent of 2.5 nuclear power stations – enough to power 4.35 million homes”.

CEE chief executive Emma Bridge went on, “We welcome the Labour manifesto’s plan to grow our fantastic community energy sector and unlock huge benefits for local people.

“Community energy projects deliver 12 to 13 times the benefit of commercial energy installations. So they are uniquely suited to engage local people to participate in the energy transformation. Labour’s Local Power Plan is a win, win, win for communities, local economies and the country,” said Bridge

In 2021, the Environmental Audit Committee advised the government that “due to the urgency of the climate crisis and the vital roles communities will have to play in reaching net zero, it is essential… to support the long-term growth of community energy across the UK.” Chris Skidmore MP in his Review of the Government’s Net Zero Policies recommended that the government “turbocharge community energy.”

“The Labour manifesto and their Local Power Plan demonstrate that the party understands that empowering people and communities to take local climate action, which will also benefit local people, is essential to achieving net zero.

“We are pleased to see real backing for community energy in the Liberal Democrat and Green manifestos too”, noted Bridge.

“All parties with plans to meet the scale of the climate challenge share the consensus that community energy is crucial for any serious climate policy programme.

“We are disappointed that the Conservative manifesto, despite stretching to 80 pages, does not mention community energy at all. The Conservatives’ manifesto doubles down on commitments to invest more in fossil fuels, including new gas power stations, while continuing to block renewable energy developments”.

Bridge says restrictions on new onshore wind turbines have effectively stopped new ones being built in England, with just a handful of new turbines being built per year.  The Conservatives’ programme as set out in its manifesto would slow down progress towards net zero and cement our dependence on fossil fuels for years to come”.

Personal voting intentions differ among CEE officials, as influenced by the parties’ varying stances in relation to the burgeoning co-operative sector.

This week CEE policy manager Duncan Law shared with a public meeting of south London co-op SE24 Community Energy his intention to vote Green, due to their support for local, accountable actions in response to the climate emergency.

Former Conservative energy minister Chris Skidmore last week told a London solar conference that he was ‘politically homeless’, after he resigned his Bristol seat last year in disappointment at the Sunak’s administration’s foot-dragging over green issues.   The West County former MP told delegates that the future of energy is local, citing the achievements of co-ops such as Bath and West Community Energy.

Outside the activities of its volunteer-run co-operatives, today’s CEE statement welcomes Labour’s pledge to double onshore wind capacity by 2030. It notes that new onshore turbines in England have been held back since David Cameron’s Conservatives introduced a de facto ban nine years ago.

Interest declared:  The present author has for several years invested in and volunteered for several community energy co-ops across London and the South East.

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Would-be prime minister Sir Keir Starmer unveiled this morning his proposals for setting up a public energy development company, to be branded Great British Energy and headquartered in Scotland.

GBE would not generate energy itself, but instead be a nationalised developer, initially enabling offshore wind and solar, followed later by technologies such as batteries and floating wind.  It would use home-grown renewables power to safeguard domestic supplies, while reducing the nation’s dependency on volatile, often dictatorial overseas suppliers of damaging hydrocarbon energy,

Labour’s GBE plans represent a big retreat from the party’s notion last year of investing £28Billion every year of a new Parliament in green measures.  Starmer scaled back the ambitions, agreeing with shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, pictured, that Britain’s public finances could now not bear such a burden.

GBE is positioned as a catalyst for private investment, with every pound of public cash stimulating three times as much from private and commercial backers.

The Conservatives last year granted over 100 new exploration permits for offshore extraction of climate-wrecking fossil fuels.  Today Starmer said Labour would honour them, but would issue no new ones.

Speaking on BBC radio, Sir Keir said oil and gas would be part of the UK’s “energy mix for decades to come” and Labour was “not planning to turn the pipes off instantaneously”.

“Labour’s ambition to get building new clean energy projects within months is hugely welcome” said Sam Richards, founder and campaign director of infrastructure lobbyists Britain Remade.

“But they won’t be able to get spades in the ground as quickly as they need to – unlocking the benefits of cheap power and lower bills – unless they tackle head-on Britain’s outdated planning system”, Richards cautioned.

“There is a list of projects currently sat in the Department ( of energy ) that on day one Labour can and should give the green light to; they should be signed-off as soon as new ministers get behind their desks”.

“Beyond that they should move as quickly as possible to reform consultations, streamline environmental impact assessments, and amend the habitats regulations to dramatically speed up the planning system for clean energy.”

Brian Allen, boss of Rovco, a high-tech company serving the offshore wind industry, observed; “Whichever government comes into power must have a very clear plan for supporting the offshore wind industry with the infrastructure, talent, and capital investment it needs.

“Otherwise, the renewables gap risks becoming a chasm. The UK’s current operational capacity in offshore wind is around 14GW, so we have just under 6 years to reach our target of 50GW by 2030″.

Training skilled workers remained a problem”, the Rovco boss went on. “The Offshore Wind Industry Council suggests an additional 70,000 workers were needed, many of whom could be found from  the oil and gas sector”.

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Community-owned low carbon power thrives in much of continental Europe driven by helpful policies and political will, the report points out.  It praises Germany & Denmark; as half the latter’s wind generation capacity, it says, is in local control.

In contrast, growth in Britain’s community-owned energy – either volunteer-led or municipal – has fallen, from 81% in 2016-17 to just 2.4% in 2020-21, the report notes.

Community Energy England is now collecting data from around 400 groups for its annual ‘State of the Sector’ report, a key influencer read by civil servants, ministers and politicians.

Common Wealth notes that Labour is pledged to allocate up to £3.3 billion to the party’s Local Power Plan, with funds distributed to municipal, co-operative and community energy projects.

The think tank’s study outlines an ambitious agenda, describing how community renewables could help to win local support for new energy infrastructure, and give communities a genuine stake in the UK’s clean power future.

The report argues that Labour’s nationalised creation GB Energy should co-invest with municipal, co-operative and community-owned energy providers using a ‘public-common partnerships model’, in which local accountability is coupled with wider public coordination of the energy transition.

Arguing against the report’s advocacy of municipal electricity and gas are costly failures, such as Bristol Energy, dead in 2021 owing £36 million to municipal taxpayers, and Nottingham’s Robin Hood Energy. The latter collapsed after five years in 2020, with debts of £34 million.  Nottingham City Council’s £16 million exposure contributed, critics argue, to the authority’s ‘effective’ bankruptcy three years later, last November.  I

Mimicking the design of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, the Common Wealth report argues Labour’s £3.3 bn for its Local Power Plan should be “uncapped”. If there is demand for viable projects that would decarbonise and cut bills, then the capital investment should be increased, Pearce argues .

The report echoes other voices in seeking planning reform, putting an end to a minority of objectors holding up new energy projects. Regional boards should pool generation and management resources, prevent surpluses being concentrated in hot spots.

The report comes as growth in the community sector stalls. The 2022 State of the Community Energy Sector report from revealed 65% more community energy organisations had stalled projects than in 2020. Growth in community-owned electricity capacity has been stunted, falling from 81% in 2016-17 to 18% in 2018-19 and 2.4% in 2020-21.

Factors holding the sector back have included the Conservatives’ continuing de facto ban on new onshore turbines in England, planning curbs, financing costs, and a perceived weakening of Rishi Sunak’s support for the sector.

The report contrast UK co-ops’ plight with Germany’s 900-plus success stories.  Sustained policy help given by the country’s town and regional councils, has contributed to German co-ops owning nearly 50% of onshore wind generation.

Germany’s nationally accountable infrastructure bank invests as much as 40% of an €80 billion annual fund on environmental projects that municipalities and communities can access.

Common Wealth argues the UK Infrastructure Bank could play a similar role to KfW, Germany’s self-described ‘bank for responsibility’ and help capitalise community energy projects.

The ginger group’s report comes after its separate study, which set out a pathway for GB Energy to become a clean energy giant, capable of driving the UK’s energy transition.

Nick Pearce, a research fellow at the think tank, wrote ‘Plug in Public Power’.    

He said: “Endless bureaucratic queues and anemic investment in the UK have stifled what should be a thriving sector that brings jobs, lower power bills, energy security and a voice to every corner of our nation.

“It’s time to take back control by bringing ownership home, away from far-off business interests and back to the people who use and produce energy.”

Keir Milburn, co-director of co-operative investment clearing house Abundance Investment, added:  

“Using public-common partnerships as the means to implement the Local Power Plan would give communities control over the surplus each enterprise produces. These can be used to help initiate new green projects which in turn could create their own surplus for reinvestment. In this way a self-expanding dynamic could be introduced into the Green Transition, massively accelerating it while also expanding and strengthening democracy.”

Interest declared: the author invests actively in several local British energy co-operatives. He has contacts within German energy co-ops.

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Sir Kier Starmer & shadow energy secretary Ed Milliband also pledged the party to cancel last year’s grant by the Conservative government of new oil and gas exploration permits in the North Sea.

Touring energy sites in north Wales with newly elected first minister Vaughan Gething, the opposition figures today extolled the speed and flexibility of floating wind farms.

Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are committed to 2030 – five years earlier than the Conservatives – as their deadline for stripping fossil fuel generation out of UK electricity. Wind’s growing share they see as essential.

“Britain is a proven leader already in offshore wind”, shadow Welsh secretary Jo Stevens said told the BBC this morning. “Our experience of floating turbines in the Celtic Sea only underlines the technology’s huge potential”.

Labour echoes the Sunak government’s commitment to 50GW of marine wind generating by 2030.  5GW more is earmarked to come from floating structures.

Last July the Crown Estate advertised the world’s largest floating turbine opportunity, 4GW across concessions in the Celtic Sea.

Though only the Hywind & Kincardine projects – amounting to less than 1GW – are Britain’s only floating farms now generating, a massive 35 GW more of floating turbines stand at all stages of development, across 49 projects.

From conventional seabed-based structures, Britain’s operating offshore capacity is around 15GW. Another 14GW is under construction or having reached the final investment hurdle.

Against the government’s 50GW goal, that means only six years remain to bring another 21GW of offshore wind into operation.

Milliband confirmed that Labour’s investment in floating turbines would be part of the £7 Billion a year it promised to Great British Energy, its nationalised green generator.   A Labour government would double public investment in onshore wind and in home insulation, and treble that for solar deployment, he said.

Labour policymakers believe that, so great is developer interest in floating turbines, every pound committed from the public purse will attract three more from private investors.

RenewableUK, lobbyists for British wind investors, welcomed Labour’s backing for the innovative spinners.

Head of offshore policy Jane Cooper said: “Developing floating wind at scale offers opportunities for us to build a far greater number of offshore wind farms in deeper, windier waters, off the coast of South Wales and the south west of England, providing vast amounts of home-blown clean power.

“We’re delighted that Keir Starmer, Vaughan Gething and the Labour team are so committed to developing floating wind, “Cooper went on.

“They recognise the huge economic opportunity this innovative technology offers for the south west of England and Wales, particularly if we can develop ports like Milford Haven and Port Talbot to ensure they’re large enough to house new manufacturing and assembly facilities for turbines as tall as The Shard and platforms the size of football pitches”.

“There is currently a huge decision on the desk of government when it comes to floating offshore wind,” the spokesperson added.

“The UK could unlock investment in the Erebus wind farm this year, a world-leading project off the coast of Pembrokeshire, in addition to two other projects off the coasts of Scotland the north east of England, through its upcoming clean power auction this summer. However, the budget set out for that auction is too low, putting progress at risk, so we’re calling on Government to revise this at the earliest opportunity.”

Meanwhile specialist consultancy Newton assessed that Britain will need 6.1 million tonnes of steel this decade to meet the 50GW offshore goal.  With plants including Port Talbot likely to reduce production at least temporarily, the nation would struggle to meet the goal, said the researchers.

“To ensure we’re not blown off track, it is imperative that UK industry and government collaborate to ensure a steady supply of steel that can meet the predicted demand peaks as industry flexes to meet the 50GW target”, said Newton’s Dan Parker.

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Reports from numerous media sources this week have the opposition party rescinding from its intention, first announced by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and leader Sir Keir Starmer in 2021.

The £28 billion pledge has been progressively watered down in recent months from, first, an annual outlay to be honoured in every year of a Labour government to, in recent months, merely an ambition to be achieved in the final years of a five year Parliament.

Now Labour officials have gone further. Media sources including the FT, BBC and Times Radio have reported that the figure is being abandoned.  Fear that it was an electoral gift to the Conservatives in this year’s forthcoming general election campaign is said to be behind the pledge’s withdrawal. In briefings, advisors say that while the quantified commitment will go, Labour remains committed to ‘transformative change in energy support’.

Government debt now risen to over £100 billon since Labour made the pledge at its 2021 conference is offered in justification for dropping the cash target.  Party figures had feared that the Conservatives would use it in charging the opposition as ‘fiscally lax’.

Only two days ago, Sir Kier Starmer had told Times Radio that his approach to green energy was ‘unwavering’.

The party’s conference last October had approved setting up GB Energy, a nationalised low carbon generator, tasked to phase out gas-fuelled power generation in Britain by 2030, five years earlier than the Conservatives’ deadline.

Shadow energy secretary Ed Milliband, who held the post in the final months of Gordon Brown’s government, is believed to have fought a fierce rearguard action within Labour’s leadership aimed at retaining the £ 28 billion figure.

He had argued that its size sent a strong signal to private investors, and was needed to put the nation on a supposed ‘war footing’ towards ending its dependence on fossil fuels.

Reaction today from green energy entrepreneurs ranged from resignation to disappointment.

Keith McGrane, CEO of Corre Energy, a developer of long-duration grid-scale battery systems, echoed Milliband’s point.

“Prioritising investment in green industries is critical to the future of our world”, he said.  Companies like ours require several sources of capital to help the UK reach its Net Zero ambitions.”

“Labour’s pledge presented a landmark opportunity to turbocharge the deployment of renewable projects in the UK and enable developers in achieving a decarbonised, flexible, and secure grid.

As Keir Starmer has said himself, government investment is ‘desperately needed’ to support this deployment. Companies like ours require several sources of capital to help the UK reach its Net Zero ambitions.” –

Today’s reports of Labour’s probable backtrack co-incide with reports by climate scientists that the planet’s temperatures have already surpassed the lower  1.5 degree warming limit presented at the 2015 Paris COP conference as a minimum safe threshold.

First Minister of Scotland, Humza Yousuf, posted on X, formerly Twitter, that his Westminster colleagues’ anticipated reversal was “a betrayal of Scotland’s renewable industry and economy” and a “complete abdication of leadership” in responding to the climate crisis.

From Photovolt Development Partners, working to deliver the £1 billion Botley West solar farm project near Oxford, co-founder Peter Gerstmann commented: “Solar farms can deliver the renewable power we need quickly, and relatively cheaply – but only with the right national infrastructure.

Gerstman said Labour’s focus must turn to increasing the capacity of Ofgem, planning authorities and the National Grid to deliver renewables projects at scale.

“For a relatively small sum, the UK can expect to see huge gains towards Net Zero, and significant inward investment to our green economy. The UK is a choice country for green investors and developers – such adjustments would increase the UK’s attractiveness even further as a global green energy hub”, said the developer.

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Delivering a major policy briefing yesterday in Bristol at the start of a probable election year, the Labour leader sought to allay doubts about the extent of the party’s green ambitions.

In recent weeks Labour figures including shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves – pictured with Starmer –  have rowed back from the £28 billion figure, which the party had first presented as an allocation made each and every year of a Labour government.

Conservative ministers have poured scorn on that formulation, saying it could only funded through big tax rises or increased public borrowing.

Starmer yesterday confirmed Labour’s scaling back of the notion, echoing Reeves’ framing of the figure as a goal to be sought as the economy recovers.

In a wide-ranging speech, Starmer stood by what he called the party’s ‘unapologetically ambitious’ targets for government, including

• adopting clean power technologies tasked to strip carbon from networks by 2030,
• launching GB Energy as a nationalised power developer, and
• pushing Britain’s economic growth to bee the fastest among the G7.

As a new public company, said Starmer, the low carbon developer GB Energy would “deliver cheaper bills.. using clean British power, not foreign oil and gas”.

The leader declared: “There is no question of pushing back on the mission – the mission is clean power by 2030”.

Labour’s new plan would, he promised, offer “a total overhaul in how we approach the economy and government”.

Presenting that new approach as “Mission Government”, Starmer repeated Labour’s commitment to existing cross-party Net Zero pledges.

Questioned by journalists about Labour’s £28 billion “Green Prosperity Plan”, Starmer said its existence would stimulates projects funded by private capital investment, and at an intended ratio of three to one.

The plan would be funded in part by borrowing, he confirmed, and would be ramped up from an initial sum over the life of a Labour government’s first Parliament.

“We’ve looked very carefully at the investment that’s needesd”, Starmer went on.  “The investment that we want to put in intended to trigger private investment at a ratio of one to three.

“We’ve had quite extensive discussions with global investors as to how that will work. And the date on which a cheque is written by the government is not the date the mission is delivered – the date the mission is delivered is 2030. That’s the mission.”

Precise levels of green investment would depend, Starmer conceded,  on current government spending and fiscal rules for borrowing.

“Obviously we pushed back the ramping up to £28bn,” Starmer said. “It doesn’t mean there’s nothing before that; it means it’s ramped up to £28bn, subject of course to money the government may already be putting in, and to our fiscal rules. But that is just sensible investment.”

Counting toward Labour’s intended pot of environmental investments, the leader made clear, will green funding already pledged by Conservative administrations. These include £6 billion recently granted for energy efficiency programmes run for three years from 2025.

“We’re trying not just to defeat the Tories”, he declared, “but to defeat their entire way of doing politics, a mindset that seeks out any differences between the people of this country, and, like weeds between the paving stones, will pull apart the cracks, so ultimately, they can divide and rule.”

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Brussels-based industry body Solar Power Europe last month issued its Solar Stewardship Initiative.

Already trialled at eleven sites in China, Norway and Germany, the benchmark specifies for the first time rules for ethical corporate behaviour.  The goal is to inject certainty into complex, often ethically muddied supply routes for components.

Britain’s Solar Energy UK is named as a collaborator in the project.

Up to 2.6 million ethnic minority Uyghur Muslims are estimated by civil society organisations to languish under incarceration in prison-like conditions in Xin Jiang province, in China’s north west.   Factories built close to many of the camps produce goods for export, including solar panels and electrical components.

Despite recent attempts by the European Union to revive the trading block’s contribution, China dominates over 90% of world manufacturing of generation devices for solar electricity, particularly panels.

European industry leaders are treading carefully.  Solar Power Europe will publish next year a separate Supply Chain Traceabiliity Standard.

Included in the European group’s SSI ESG stipulations already released are:

• Requiring any manufacturer to invite independent inspectors, known as assessment bodies (ABs), to audit at least two of its sites within a twelve month period.

Human and labour rights, environmental practices, corporate governance and ethical business practices are named as focuses of the AB’s scrutiny.  A total of 14 sub-sections are stipulated.

Slavery in Chinese solar panel manufacture has long worried the industry. Last year researchers at Sheffield Hallam University’s Helena Kennedy Centre published ‘In Broad Daylight’.

Conducted over six months, the report found that 45% of the world’s high-grade polysilicon, the key material for solar cells, was controlled by manufacturers operating in the Uyghur Region.  From other regions, China controlled a further 30% of polysilicon supply.

All polysilicon manufacturers in the Uyghur Region reported their participation in ‘labour transfer’ programmes, the Hallam study found. These are measures confirmed by Beijing in November 2020, to be state-sponsored measures to move workers – supposedly voluntarily – to localities requiring excess labour.  NGOs and human rights organisations say Beijing’s default position is to makes such transfers compulsory.

The Sheffield Hallam report identified:

• 11 companies engaged in labour transfers
• 4 additional companies located within industrial parks that have accepted labour transfers
• 90 Chinese & international companies whose supply chains are affected

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CEE says Labour stands to “turbo-charge” the sector, freeing up volunteer-run co-ops “to be a powerhouse for energy transformation in every community”.

An extra 8GW of renewable generating capacity, to be built by 2030 and sponsored by GB Energy, a new nationalised investor, is among a revamp of Labour’s new policies announced today.

Labour said its Local Power Plan will put “more solar panels on public land or housing estates, and empower local communities to come forward with projects directly owned by local people.”

The party unveiled its radical new direction during Community Energy Fortnight, as over 320 co-operatives nationwide celebrate more than 330 MW of democratically accountable capacity already installed.

Under Labour’s sharpened Local Power blueprint, councils too will receive £600 million a year to boost municipal generation, in return for identifying generation sites and applying easier rules granting planning approval. Profits from sales of municipal energy will go to improve services or lower council taxes.

Labour’s bigger role for co-ops and councils comes after shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves rowed back last month from an earlier pledge to spend £28 Billion every year on renewables. That figure is now downgraded as a target for the fifth year of any Labour government.

Speaking this morning in Edinburgh, Sir Keir Starmer – pictured with Reeves – was unveiling Labour’s plans to:

• loosen planning curbs in England & Wales which continue in practice the Tories’ seven year ban on new onshore wind farms, the cheapest form of low-carbon power
• end new North Sea oil & gas extraction, but respect all licences granted before Labour takes office. These are likely to include the Rosebank field, west of Shetland
• set up GB Energy, as a nationalised body to accelerate renewables, with its headquarters in Scotland

GB Energy’s role would include overseeing the recycling of profits from municipal energy sales. Councils could use that income to cut council tax, pay for improved public services or simply provide rebates on energy bills.

Community Energy England quantifies big social benefits delivered by volunteer-managed renewables. Advice delivered by its supporters across England achieves at least £9 of social benefit for every £1 spent, it claims.  In 2021, the sector’s toughest year for operations, co-op members worked with more than 51,000 households and saved £3.35m on energy bills.

Emma Bridge, CEE’s chief executive commented; “We warmly welcome Labour’s emphasis on bringing together communities with the public and private sectors as a key part of their Clean Power plan.

She went on: “Community energy groups are already working with schools, businesses and community buildings to install renewable energy, helping fuel poor homes to reduce their energy bills, supporting unemployed people to build skills and gain new employment, and much more. But there are many parts of the country that don’t yet have community energy.

“Building a zero-carbon energy system is a social issue that requires a just transition. Community energy builds the consent, trust and active participation to make this happen.

“Labour’s announcement is a strong step towards enabling all communities to have access to their own energy projects and creating a fair, zero carbon energy system”, Bridge added. Community Energy England looks forward to working with them to realise that vision.”

In Scotland, onshore wind schemes controlled by co-ops deliver on average 34 times the community benefit of commercial projects, the sector claims.

From the Renewable Energy Association, chief executive Dr Nina Skorupska CBE welcomed Labour’s move.

“As Sir Keir makes clear, renewables can deliver cheaper, greener power than any alternatives and must be rolled out at scale as quickly as possible. The REA echoes his statement that clean energy is now essential for national security.

“We agree in principle that local communities should benefit economically from projects in their areas, as this could become a major added benefit of the Net Zero transition”.

Sarah Merrick, founder & CEO of Ripple Energy, the venture enabling collective ownership of wind and solar farms, also backed Labour’s plan.

“We welcome Keir Starmer’s commitments to overturn the de-facto ban in England on onshore wind and speeding up grid connections”, said Merrick. “Action is long overdue“.  

Crowding in private investment was a key plank of Starmer’s speech. For a truly democratic and just transition, investment from households across the country must be crowded in too. People, as well as big financial institutions, can and should be able to own and directly benefit from the UK’s new wind farms and solar parks.

“Ripple has already shown it’s possible, we stand ready to deliver on a much larger scale.”

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Adopting immediately Labour’s declared freeze on new marine extractions loses only 30 TWh per year, says the ECIU.  That’s well within the production capacity of offshore facilities coming on stream, such as each of the Dogger Bank project’s three phases.

The ECIU’s analysis is based on statistics from the industry regulator the North Sea Transition Authority (NTSA).

Researchers found installing heat pumps in all new UK homes planned for the rest of this decade would avoid half as much gas again.

Offshore wind farms generate electricity much more cheaply than gas power stations. A 2.7GW wind farm would, on the ECIU’s costings, generate as much power as from burning the avoided North Sea gas, and could pay back £12 billion over the period of a 15-year Contract for Difference (CfD), based on forecasted wholesale prices.

Around 100GW of offshore turbine projects await construction or completion in UK-licenced waters. Phase 3 of SSE Renewables’ Dogger Bank project will begin output in 2026. Each phase promises 1.2GW. The operator is weighing up a fourth extension.

New polling has also found that 54% of Britons prefer tax cuts to be focused on renewables, compared to only 15% who think they should be given to oil and gas companies.  Pollsters Opinium quizzed 2,150 adults last week.

“There is an opportunity cost in providing tax cuts to oil and gas companies in that you’re not providing those tax cuts elsewhere in the economy”, ECIU energy analyst Jess Ralston observed.

“Even with a windfall tax in place, oil & gas companies are generating record-breaking profits. Meanwhile, renewable investors are warning that they plan to put their money in the US and EU thanks to tax credits on offer there, so the UK is at risk of missing out on private sector cash.

“With more wind farms in place, gas plants will switch on less often meaning the UK needs to find and pay for less gas and is more energy secure. Plans to accelerate offshore wind farms could balance out a moratorium.

“According to the industry itself, North Sea output will continue to decline in the coming years”, Ralston continued. “Jobs will disappear whatever happens”

“So the question for industry and government is how best to transfer those valuable skills into a growing sector like wind away, and away from one that’s in decline.”

By 2030, according to forecasts from the NTSA regulator, UK gas production will be c.190TWh/yr, 55% below current levels.

Of this output in 2030, 85% would be from existing fields, and only 15% would be affected by any moratorium on new licencing, either from drilling in new fields or more speculative ‘future discoveries’.

Burning 30TWh of gas in power stations would generate around 15TWh of electricity, owing to inherent inefficiencies in gas power plants. The same amount of power can be produced each year by 2.7GW capacity of new offshore wind turbines, which are the cheapest form of power generation.

New renewables will be paying back billions to household bills in the coming years via Contracts for Difference, Ralston points out.  CfDs undercut regular electricity prices, which are largely driven by the cost of gas.

But the renewables industry has expressed concern that the Government’s recent tax changes and decision not to reciprocate tax breaks like the Investment Allowance provided to North Sea drillers will slow deployment, as will planning regulations.

In the face of inexorable declines in North Sea gas production, some green observers fear the government might increase the nation’s dependence on gas imports such as LNG, by allowing housebuilders to install gas boilers in new home.

That’d be a retreat from sense, say the ECIU. By 2030, a new-build home with an electric heat pump would use only one-tenth of as much gas as one with a gas boilers, thanks to renewables replacing most of the gas used in power generation.

If heat pumps were installed in all 2.1 million homes that could be built by 2030, they would save half the amount of gas affected by a moratorium on new North Sea licences.

Currently, heat pumps are made in the UK in Cornwall, Derbyshire, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Their manufacturers are among businesses adding more than £70 billion to Britain’s Gross Value Added, according to ECIU-commissioned analysis.

That could shrink, the think tank cautions, if the government fails to match investment incentives for the UK, such as the US Inflation Reduction Act and the European Union’s response, its the Net Zero Industry Act.

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Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) issued its warning after reports in the Sunday Times that “Sir Keir Starmer will announce plans to block all new oil and gas developments.”

The paper’s leading article warned Labour of the dangers from such a move.   It pointed out that the UK gets 75% of its total energy from oil and gas – so having its own supplies was a vital bulwark against future global shortages.

Labour should be more collaborative in its approach to the UK’s offshore industry, the OEUK lobby group advised.

It cited the approach of the US, Norway and many Middle East states, who are work to support domestic supplies. At the same time foreign governments capitalise on the industry’s expertise to expand low carbon technologies like wind and high-volume production of hydrogen.

The oil and gas industry remains essential for UK consumers’ energy security, said OEUK. About 24 million UK homes rely on gas boilers for heat and hot water and the nation has 32 million vehicles running on petrol or diesel. About 42% of the UK’s electricity comes from gas-fired power stations.

The UK offshore sector also supports over 200,000 skilled jobs nationwide, adding over £20 billion to the economy. It paid an estimated £11 billion in taxes in the last fiscal year.

OEUK’s chief executive David Whitehouse, pictured, declared: “People wouldn’t forgive anyone who shut down Britain’s oil and gas industry only to replace it with imports of foreign oil and gas. Everyone is clear that the energy system must change but business and government must do this in partnership. Labour’s approach risks sending the wrong signals.

“Labour’s proposals are also very unclear, especially on costs. Our sector now needs clarity on the detail of Labour’s plans including analysis on what they mean for jobs, energy security, imports, and Britain’s overall economy.

“Homegrown production of oil and gas means we avoid costlier, less secure, and higher carbon footprint imports. Investment in UK production would also support the infrastructure and workforces needed to make cleaner, more affordable energy in the UK, for the UK.

“As we build that future there is no simple choice between oil and gas on the one hand and renewables on the other. The reality is that to keep the lights on and grow our economy, we will need both. By the mid-2030s, oil and gas will still provide for 50% of our energy needs.

“We urge Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves to fulfil their promise to listen to industry and engage with our workers. We need to meet our climate goals but without undermining UK energy security, the economy and our skilled workforces – the very people needed to deliver lower carbon, secure and affordable energy.”

OEUK’s recent Business Outlook Report warned that political tensions and uncertainties over the sector’s future are making investment by companies in oil and gas ever harder to secure. The sector has consistently warned that without new investment in domestic production, by 2030 the UK will be forced to import 80% of its oil and gas compared to around half now.

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Today’s figure is believed to be the highest profit ever recorded by a UK-domiciled company, regardless of sector.

Shell’s overall earnings doubled in the twelve months to December, in line with rivals’ profits increased on the back of recovering demand, coupled with supplies curtailed by sanctions against Russia.

Shareholders including pension funds and insurers will receive £5 billion of the £32.2 billion for both the past and the present financial year. Part of that rewarding of owners will come in the form of a share buyback, details of which the firm announced this morning.

Only one twentieth of Shell’s business comes from the UK. The company calculates its will pay only £400 million in tax here this year.

Across the supermajor’s activities, the steepest rises in earnings included a doubling on profits from upstream exploration & extraction, and a tenfold rise in chemicals.

Lobbyists Global Witness yesterday launched a “greenwash”action before US financial authorities, alleging Shell spends only 1.5% of its investment budget in clean technologies, despite implying more.

The company’s renewables and energy solutions divisions continues to post losses, albeit declining ones. The segment’s $1.059 billion of red ink was a fall of 30% over 2021.   The division’s operating highlight was its first venture into offshore wind, when in December it secured rights with a partner to develop Hollandse Kust West VI, a 760MW turbine development.

Reacting on BBC radio to Shell’s numbers, Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves promised to extend the government’s windfall tax, and vowed to eliminate tax relief on new fossil fuel extraction.

“I am desperate, determined to change that”, she said.

“Labour would have proper control on excess profits from oil companies such as Shell. They are unjustifiable as millions of British homes and businesses are struggling under intolerable bills charged by energy companies.”

Reeves defended continued investment in oil extraction, but said the transition towards clean alternatives needed to be stepped up. She called for easing planning restrictions curbing onshore turbines, and reforms to accelerate grid connections for renewables generators.

Greenpeace campaigners boarded a Shell platform being towed from Portuguese waters to replace an existing rig in the North Sea.

One protester, Imogen Michelle,  decried the company on BBC Radio for funding climate destruction.   “We need (Shell) to switch instead to renewables, and to pay out now to the communities and countries instead destroyed or suffering from the man-made climate emergency.  People are losing their lives as a result of what the oil companies continue to do.

By building a giant platform like this one, Shell are locking us into twenty more years of climate destruction”.

Campaigners Tax Justice UK described Shell’s earnings as ‘obscene’.  Its director Robert Palmer joined a call from lobbyists the IPPR and Common Wealth for shareholders to face higher taxes on dividends.

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Treasury minister James Cartlidge, pictured, told the House of Commons that post-March support from government will be extended to twelve months, providing a ‘transitional bridge’ for commercial bill payers.

Support budgeted at up to £5.5 billion for businesses, charities and public organisations  will amount to discounts equivalent to up to £6.97 per MWh off retail prices of gas, and £ 19.61 per MWh off electricity costs. All discounts will be applied at source.

The minister presented those prices as saving £2,300 for an average pub over the full 12 months of the new arrangements, and £400 off for a small retail store.

For intensive energy users in manufacturing, higher levels of support will equate to discounts on all but the first 30% of volumes consumed.  For gas the unit discount will be up to £40 per MWh, and £89.10 per MWh for electricity.

An average manufacturing firm would save around £700,000 over the twelve months of the second phase, the minister said.

Such firms would continue to supported at source on the basis of average wholesale costs of 99 MWh for gas and £118 MWh for electricity.

Extending the second phase of support until April 2024 would give greater predictability & security than the phase it replaced, Cartlidge asserted.  Phase 2 ‘s budgeted £5.5 billion compares with the £18 billion confirmed by the Office of Budget Responsibility to have been met from public funds since October.

Short-lived energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg introduced his energy bill relief scheme in September, mimicking the energy price guarantee aiding domestic users.

Cartlidge this evening commended the government’s support for business energy as among the most generous in Europe. But it could not continue at current levels, in view of national debt standing now at £2.48 trillion, equivalent to 98.4% of GDP.,

Taxpayer exposure to volatile energy markets needed to be capped, said the minister. But the government was aware that businesses needed long-term horizons, including incentives to invest in energy efficiency. Continuing Government support contains an additional £ 6 billion of publicly funded measures intended to cut energy use, Cartlidge said.

Wholesale gas prices, the cause of turmoil in the setting of UK electricity generation tariffs as well as for direct end users, have in recent weeks dropped significantly below levels posted before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, begun on 24 February.   This morning spot prices on the EU Dutch TTF market were around Euros 75 per MWh, marginally lower than prices last seen in the week before Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, and halved in only 30 days since early December.

Freakishly warm weather across northern & central Europe, allied to co-ordinated stock building, and accelerated mitigation such as Germany’s completion of a new floating LNG terminal at Wilhelmshaven, are among factors depressing gas prices.

Complicating Whitehall’s targeting of emergency support during the first phase has been brokers’ and suppliers’ frequent ignorance of the industrial sectors in which their customers operate.

In the chamber, Labour’s treasury spokesperson Abena Oppong-Asare asked whether the three monthly review among stakeholders had ever taken place in December, promised by by Rees-Mogg.

Her colleague Darren Jones, chair of the Commons’ backbench industry and energy select committee pressed that ministers should correct business energy support measures, as they had done with schemes support domestic bill-payers.

Scots Nationalist MP Joanna Cherry cited the example of a city farm charity in her Edinburgh constituency which faced likely closure after a 300% rise in its energy costs.

More details here.

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Ahead of this month’s Comprehensive Spending Review, Labour is calling for an economic recovery that will deliver high-skilled jobs in every part of the UK as part of the drive towards a clean economy. It is also calling for the low-carbon infrastructure of the future to be built in Britain.

Labour’s calls follow an extensive consultation with businesses, trade unions and other stakeholders around what a credible green recovery should look like, which received almost 2,000 responses. The consultation indicated that the Government must:

• Recover jobs
  By bringing forward planned capital investment and dedicating it to low-carbon sectors – at least £30billion in the next 18 months – as part of a rapid stimulus package to support up to an estimated 400,000 additional jobs.
• Retrain workers
  By putting in place an emergency training programme to equip people affected by the unemployment crisis with the skills they need for the future greener economy.
• Rebuild business
  By creating a National Investment Bank similar to those operating in other countries, focused on green investment, and by ensuring that public investment always aids the drive to net-zero rather than hindering it.

The consultation report details a number of areas where progress has so far been limited in the UK, but where action now would support the creation of new jobs and tackle the climate and environmental crisis. They include:

• Investing in upgrading ports and shipyards for offshore wind supply chains.
• Expanding investment in Carbon Capture and Storage and hydrogen to help establish new opportunities for highly-skilled workers.
• Accelerating planned investment in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and ensuring the planning system better supports electric vehicle charging.
• Bringing forward orders for electric buses to help struggling manufacturers fill their order books.
• Introducing a National Nature Service, an employment programme to focus on nature conservation projects.
• Expanding energy efficiency and retrofit programmes, including in social housing.
• Ensuring that updated Sector Deals for sectors like automotive, steel and aerospace protect jobs and promote the shift to net zero.
• Bringing forward flooding protection investment, prioritising areas of need across the North West, Yorkshire and the East Midlands.

These should be delivered within a wider strategy that also meets the UK’s overall infrastructure needs at the upcoming Spending Review.

Ed Miliband MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said, “We face a jobs emergency and a climate emergency. It’s time for a bold and ambitious plan to deliver hundreds of thousands of jobs which can also tackle the climate crisis.

“This is the right thing to do for so many people who are facing unemployment, the right thing to do for our economy to get a lead in the industries of the future and the right thing to do to build a better quality of life for people in our country.

“As other countries lead the way with a green recovery, Britain is hesitating. It’s time to end the dither and inaction, and start delivering now. It is what the British people deserve and what the crises we face demand.”

Anneliese Dodds MP, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, said, “Labour is ambitious for Britain. We can harness the opportunities for green growth if the Government takes the right decisions now.

“In recent years, and particularly during this crisis, our country has fallen behind in the drive to a cleaner, greener economy. We’ve seen far more rhetoric than action – and that has cost our country jobs.

“Future generations will judge us by the choices we make today to tackle the unemployment crisis and face up to the realities of the climate emergency.

“That’s why we need coordinated action to support 400,000 jobs of the future today, not tomorrow. Now’s the time to build it in Britain.”

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