UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has released his 10-point plan for a “green industrial revolution.” Yesterday, Electrek wrote about the government’s plan for the UK’s electric vehicle transition by 2030. Here are the green energy highlights.
The UK’s energy plan
The plan will allow the UK to forge ahead with its net zero by 2050 plan in the run-up to the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in 2021.
It will mobilize £12 billion of government investment to create and support up to 250,000 highly skilled green jobs in the UK, and spur over three times as much private sector investment by 2030.
The Northeast, Yorkshire and the Humber, West Midlands, Scotland and Wales will serve as centers for the green industrial revolution. Here are some green energy objectives of the plan:
Offshore wind. Produce enough offshore wind to power every home, quadrupling how much the UK produces to 40GW by 2030, supporting up to 60,000 jobs. The UK aims to be a world leader in wind energy production.
Hydrogen. Aim to generate 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for industry, transport, power and homes, and aim to develop the first town heated entirely by hydrogen by the end of the decade. Up to £500 million will be devoted to hydrogen innovation and development, including trialing homes using hydrogen for heating and cooking. This will start with a Hydrogen Neighborhood in 2023, move to a Hydrogen Village by 2025, with an aim for a Hydrogen Town – equivalent to tens of thousands of homes – before the end of the decade. Of this funding, £240 million will go into new hydrogen production facilities.
Greener ships and planes. £20 million for a competition to develop clean maritime technology, such as feasibility studies on key sites, including Orkney and Teesside. Support difficult-to-decarbonize industries to become greener through research projects for zero-emission planes and ships.
Homes and public buildings. £1 billion in 2021 into making new and existing homes and public buildings more efficient, extending the Green Homes Grant voucher scheme by a year and making public sector buildings greener and cutting bills for hospitals and schools, as part of the Public Sector Decarbonization Scheme.
Johnson said:
Our green industrial revolution will be powered by the wind turbines of Scotland and the Northeast, propelled by the electric vehicles made in the Midlands, and advanced by the latest technologies developed in Wales, so we can look ahead to a more prosperous, greener future.
Electrek’s Take
Just as an observation, the plan doesn’t mention solar, but it’s the UK. You have to work with what you’ve got, and what they’ve got is wind. Nuclear also factors heavily, but we’ll deal with that in a separate post.
It’s not a perfect plan, and we just stuck to a briefing of the green energy aspects here. But however imperfect it is, it’s a plan, and it’s progress. It’s a big improvement on what preceded it, which was not a lot.
It’s a great example of the bigger-picture fact that governments and businesses are actively working on real climate action — and that it truly is the beginning of a green industrial revolution, not only for the UK, but for the world.
With plans like this coming from the UK’s Conservative Party, and Biden’s impending presidency, we think things are going to start to change for the better. It’ll be messy, but it sure is exciting.
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Author: Michelle Lewis
Source: Electrek
