The government needs to have a longer term prospective on offshore wind power, according to Mike Childs, head of the climate change campaign at Friends of the Earth.
He noted that there is still uncertainty about the renewable energy technology, specifically in planning and investment risk.
“[The government] … need[s] to de-risk some of [the] elements of using renewables, for example, they have [to] agree to set up in the UK a Green Investment Bank that could partly invest in some of these technologies and by doing so, would reduce the risk for other investors,” he explained.
Mr Childs highlighted the benefits of large-scale offshore deployment, noting that marine renewables could supply more than half of the UK’s total energy requirements in 20 years’ time “if the UK decided that is the path we wanted to follow”.
Therefore, the expert stressed the importance of having a plan beyond 2020, giving investors more confidence.
Eneco has recently unveiled plans for a wind farm off the Dorset coast, which could be larger than the UK’s biggest offshore wind farm near Thanet, Kent.
Posted by Emily Thomas
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