Hunt’s plans to mitigate the energy crisis using Wind

Amidst the months of discussions surrounding the country’s energy crisis, Jeremy Hunt has revealed that Offshore Wind Farms are an energy goldmine, generating record amounts of energy in the last year. In his positive and optimistic speech at the Bloomberg’s European headquarters in London, the chancellor unveiled his plan to boost Britain’s economy, with the UK’s renewable energy industry as a “big growth area”.

According to official reports, Offshore wind projects take up to four years to get through the DCO process. Mr. Hunt, working alongside Lee Rowley the Minister for Local Government and Building Safety, has asked the National Infrastructure Commission to review the current approach to National Policy Statements (NPSs) and identify how the planning system could be accelerated.

Experts have valued British wind energy to be worth a trillion pounds by the end of the decade as National Grid’s Electricity Systems Operator shows the huge volume of electricity generated from wind. Wind power is now driving down the costs of electricity and the government has committed to further expand offshore capacity from 14 gigawatts (GW) to 50GW by 2030.

In his speech, Jeremy Hunt stated “Another big growth area is our green and clean energy sector. The UK is a world leader here, with the largest offshore wind farm in the world.” He is not wrong. In fact, we have the largest installed capacity of off shore wind in the world, and have the 6th largest capacity of combined onshore and offshore capacity in the world with over 11,000 wind turbines at the start of the year.

He went on to confirm that 40% of electricity last year was generated from renewables, mainly wind, describing that this reached 60% on one particular day. He was referring to a tweet published from National Grid stating that they generated more than 61.4% of the country’s electricity that day, following high winds that broke the record previously attained in November 2022.

Above images: Jeremy Hunt Official Portrait 2022 and Map of Wind Power sites off British shores.

Image left: On 31st December 2022 National Grid tweeted that wind generated 61.4% of British electricity, considerably more than any other source.

Record wind energy production meant that the National Grid exceeded another record on the same day, as the percentage of zero carbon electricity entering the grid reached the impressive new record of 87.6 percent. A truly remarkable milestone and achievement for boosting homegrown, clean power sources.

The Government has granted a number of contracts for offshore wind electricity producers to generate at lower rates, and Mr Hunt is now pushing to speed up development permits to boost UK growth and reduce energy bills. He expressed concern that the approval of these major projects has slowed by 65% in the last decade.
As the country suffered energy price hikes and many homes unable to afford heating this Winter, the chancellor is keen to expedite the process and see these valuable infrastructures upgraded and prevent holding back growth as the country looks to free itself from volatile fuel markets.

We still have some way to go, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.