Keir Starmer: Great British Energy to have £8.3bn budget and target further £60bn
Great British Energy, the publicly-owned clean energy investment company the Labour-led UK Government is creating, will work closely with the Crown Estate to roll out renewables across its £16bn portfolio of land and seabed.
The partnership is the first for Great British Energy and has been confirmed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Energy Security and Net-Zero Secretary Ed Miliband today (25 July).
The duo have also confirmed the Government’s intention to support GB Energy with £8.3bn of public money this Parliament, and aim to unlock up to £60bn from other sources – mainly private investment – within the same timeframe.
Labour pledged before the general election to strive for a decarbonised power grid by 2030, five years sooner than the Conservative Governments led by Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
Achieving this vision will require an unprecedented roll-out of renewable generation. Labour’s general election manifesto stipulated that the party would quadruple offshore wind capacity, treble solar capacity and double onshore wind capacity by 2030. This is equivalent to scaling the UK’s generation capacity for offshore wind to around 60GW, onshore wind to 30GW and solar to 32GW.
The Crown Estate estimates that the partnership will lead to between 20GW and 30GW od new offshore wind projects reaching the seabed leasing stage by the end of the decade. The body owns and leases much of the seabed to offshore wind developers.
Miliband said: “Great British Energy comes from a simple idea – that the British people should own and benefit from our natural resources. Investing in clean power is the route to end the UK’s energy insecurity, and Great British Energy will be essential in this mission.
“The agreement with The Crown Estate will lead to more investment, cleaner power, more energy security, and is a statement of intent that it will be a permanent and transformative institution for our country.”
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