Clean Power by 2030: UK’s bold plan for renewables, jobs, and energy security

The government’s ‘ambitious’ Clean Power by 2030 plan focusses on energy security, the creation of new energy industries and skills, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. We had a look at the plan to see what’s included.

Expanding renewables

To achieve Clean Power 2030 plan, the UK government has outlined a need for 43-50 GW of offshore wind, 27-29 GW of onshore wind, and 45-47 GW of solar power to reduce fossil fuel reliance. These sources of renewable energy generation will also need to be supported by 23-27 GW of battery capacity, 4-6 GW of long-duration energy storage (LDES), and the further development of carbon capture technologies.

Importantly, the plan to expand renewables will be driven by 80 networks and infrastructure projects, most of which are already ‘at the advanced stage of planning.’ Unblocking networks will be a key part of the plan to expand renewables, with connection issues causing a number of ‘stop-start’ failures for renewables over the years.

Over the last five years, the UK grid connection queue has grown ten times, containing 740 GW of proposed generation capacity.

Another cornerstone of the government’s Clean Power 2030 plan will be Great British Energy (GBE). GBE will be instrumental in supporting local and community-led renewable energy projects servicing households, businesses, and public buildings. This will be known as the Local Power Plan, putting local authorities at the heart of renewable energy generation.

Upscaling renewable investments

The government’s clean energy plan will require ambitious investments of £40 billion between 2025 and 2030 to drive renewable output, upskill the workforce, and decarbonise.

Part of this investment will be the progression of a forthcoming Industrial Strategy, focussed on creating trade unions and workforce planning to deliver clean power. The Clean Industry Bonus will also be introduced to support manufacturing of coastal and land-based renewable energy tech, sustainable supply chains, and increased transparency within the sector.

The National Wealth Fund will allocate at least £5.8 billion of its capital to green hydrogen, carbon capture, ports, gigafactories, and green steel. Simultaneously, GBE will focus on the support and growth of clean power supply chains around the UK.

Overcoming challenges

The report outlines three key planning challenges slowing the rollout of renewable energy technologies:

• Transmission networks and offshore wind projects need permission for construction by 2026 to ensure they are operational by 2030.
• New onshore renewable and battery projects, particularly large scale ones, will need to receive consent by 2028.
• Low-carbon flexibility and unabated gas will need to have identified pathways for delivery for 2030, ensuring relevant permissions are in place to deliver this.

Skills are also a key challenge in the government’s Clean Power 2030 plan. We do not presently have the skills and staff in place to deliver on these ambitions.

The wider transition to net zero is expected to create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the coming years, with Clean Power by 2030 playing a significant role in stimulating these jobs and opportunities. In particular, jobs created by the Clean Power 2030 plan will be technical engineers at levels 4-7, electrical welders, and mechanical trades at levels 2-7. Managerial roles will also see an increase, with project managers at levels 4-7 needed to support delivery of renewable energy projects.

Analysis by the Assessment for Clean Energy Skills Challenge highlights several key barriers to expanding the renewable energy workforce:

• An ageing workforce in the UK, with many of these workers unwilling to reskill or switch focus, or simply retiring soon.
• Most of the workforce needed by 2030 is already employed so retraining and upskilling is essential for transferability.
• There is a lack of awareness regarding green sector jobs. 87 per cent of 16 – 24 year olds do not know what ‘green skills’ refer to, according to the Learning and Work Institute.
• Workforce inequalities preventing entry to the market. Only 16.5 per cent of the engineering workforce is female, and only 7 per cent of the offshore wind workforce is from non-white backgrounds.
• Clean energy projects are clustered in certain areas of the UK, and local skills are unable to support these localised industries.

This just scratches the surface of the report’s ambitious but encouraging proposals. In order to deliver the scale of clean power the government hopes to achieve by 2030, the development of ‘quicker to connect’ networks, significant renewable energy investment, and the rapid expansion of green skills are essential.

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