The Clean Power Action Plan will prioritise national grid projects, speed up planning processes for energy infrastructure and expand the renewable auction process

The Clean Power Action Plan aims to accelerate delivery of UK-based energy infrastructure and supply incease national energy security.

Although energy bills were rising worldwide prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022,  IMF research found that the UK was the worst-hit by the energy crisis in Western Europe, due to the combined factors of an overreliance on gas to generate energy and having the least energy efficient housing stock in Europe.

Although Russian oil, gas and coal was banned by the Government in early 2023, the UK still imports the majority of fuel from countries such as Norway, Qatar and the USA.

Key points of the Clean Power Action Plan include:

• Allowing planners to prioritise critical energy infrastructure to speed up project delivery
• Systemic reform to prioritise the most viable national grid connection projects
• Enabling households to access cheaper tariffs at different times of the day
• To explore building canopies of solar panels on outdoor car parks
• To reach 45GW-47GW solar generation capacity by 2030
• Bringing onshore wind back under the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project regime, to enable larger wind farms to be built
• Expanding the renewable auction process to enable funding to be secured prior to planning permission to speed up project delivery

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero estimates that the proposals will generate £40bn a year of investment from the private sector.

Speaking on 13 December, Miliband said:

“A new era of clean electricity for our country offers a positive vision of Britain’s future with energy security, lower bills, good jobs and climate action. This can only happen with big, bold change and that is why the government is embarking on the most ambitious reforms to our energy system in generations.

“The era of clean electricity is about harnessing the power of Britain’s natural resources so we can protect working people from the ravages of global energy markets.

“The clean power sprint is the national security, economic security, and social justice fight of our time – and this plan gives us the tools we need to win this fight for the British people.”

The housing sector warned of potential delays as a result of poor connectivity to the grid

Ian Fletcher, director of policy, British Property Federation, comments, “This is yet another step in the right direction by the Government to think more strategically about making sure infrastructure supports development. Moving away from ‘first come first serve’ connection in the queue to connect to the grid is positive (for example, electricity generation projects such as solar PV on warehouse roofs), as is the proposal to better resource statutory consultees.

“However, Government must ensure that in undertaking reform, new housing and other developments are not held up unnecessarily – we have heard of housing not being built because the wait for grid connections is so long. This undermines the Government’s own 1.5m homes target and acts as a drag anchor on UK growth.”

Money would be better spent entirely on renewables, says policy lead at Greenpeace

Doug Parr, the policy director at Greenpeace UK, said to the Guardian: “The winds of change are finally blowing in the right direction. But this roadmap must treble the amount of power generated by offshore wind and solar and double onshore wind, at least, if it’s to deliver the kind of ambition needed to turbocharge our way to a renewably powered future.”

He added: “Any money earmarked for carbon capture and storage – which is expensive, impossible to make zero carbon and fails to detach electricity prices from the volatile international gas market – would be better spent on the renewables, grid and storage infrastructure that will actually deliver clean power.”