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Welcome, in a break from the norm we’re bringing you two issues of Net Zero News this month, instead of one. That’s because it’s not every day we see a change in Government, promising positive impact for UK residents and business owners, whilst tackling the big challenges.
Net zero is certainly high up the agenda when it comes to significant challenges, so we take a look at what this might mean – from reviewing their net zero and energy security strategies to better understanding where Labour stand on the bigger environmental issues.
Delivering a National Wealth Fund
Creating a National Wealth Fund is designed to benefit all regions of the UK, as well as generating good quality, well paid jobs for people. It’s earmarked for investment in a range of projects and industry sectors, including renewable energy, ports, clean steel plants and gigafactories.
Did you know?
NRL is supporting the UK’s largest gigafactory which is currently under construction in Sunderland, which once operational will have a 15.8GWh production capacity to manufacture electric vehicle batteries.
We’re currently recruiting a range of mechanical and electrical contract roles to support with the interior fit-out phase of the construction build, and you can find out more and apply using the link below.
The Great British Energy and Green Prosperity solution
Ahead of Rishi Sunak calling a general election, Kier Starmer was already publicly declaring Labour’s solution to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel and drive more energy security. This was confirmed in the King’s Speech, through the creation of Great British Energy (GB Energy) a new publicly owned energy company established on home soil, designed to allow greater control of our energy production, together with Labour’s Green Prosperity Plan to cut energy bills and create jobs across the UK:
Reducing household energy bills by up to £1,400 per year
– by insulating homes, building cheaper and generating cleaner energy
£53bn in business energy bill savings up to 2030
– helping our industries to be more competitive and bringing down prices for consumers
A British Jobs Bonus
– supporting over 35,000 new clean energy and supply chain jobs in England by 2023
Regional highlights
In Scotland, Labour promises investment through the National Wealth Fund to support industrial decarbonisation projects in key areas including Forth and Tay and the North East of Scotland. They also propose basing GB Energy’s headquarters in Scotland.
Northern Ireland can expect to see money spent on upgrading Belfast harbour, as well as hundreds of local power projects.
South Wales’ heavy industry is also a target for industrial decarbonisation support, including investing in carbon capture and storage (CCS) and green hydrogen, whilst in the North continued investment in renewable energy clusters has been identified.
Across England, decarbonisation, renewable energy and warm house upgrades have been signposted for Government investment, as well as a £1.5bn Battery Power fund and a £2.5bn Plan for Steel that’s designed to protect existing jobs and create new ones.
Noteworthy initiatives in England include decarbonisation investment in Teesside, which our Redcar based recruitment team welcome, and backing to bring Sizewell C power station into production.
Upgrading the energy grid
Experts are in agreement that considerable work is needed to upgrade the UK’s energy grid, and to quote Labour’s Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower plan, ‘The significant increase in both clean power generation and clean industry will require four times as much grid infrastructure to be built in the next seven years as has been built in the last 30.’
The problem National Grid as facing is a growing queue of energy companies wanting to connect their renewable energy projects to the UK’s electricity network. The National Grid are already embarking on their Great Grid Update, with Labour reaffirming their commitment to speed this up and remove barriers. Something it says in the long-term will allow them to pass on savings to consumers, to help drive down their energy bills.
Warming up homes
As well as having an acute focus on powering new sources of green energy to reduce utility bills, significant investment is also planned to make homes more energy efficient. Where heat is lost through walls and roofs it increases the cost to power a home, so a new national Warm Homes plan aims to provide access to roof and cavity wall installation, solar panels and green technology, which it in turn Labour say will create more jobs for trade roles to install the upgrades.
Taking control of power locally
GB Energy’s remit will be to support national and local energy initiatives, including £600m in funding granted to local authorities and up to £400m in low-interest loans that communities can apply for each year.
Co-investment will also be offered for private sector large-scale projects and plans also include sharing a proportion of profits with local communities, so they realise the benefit of initiatives and gain a crucial revenue stream.
In a recent blog we looked at the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnerships’ Cumbria Distributed Energy Strategy, which explores the wide range of opportunities to locally produce power across the region through green energy projects. This report highlights how for a vast and in parts very rural county, local energy projects combined with larger private sector energy infrastructure provides the potential to harness a significant amount of natural resources.
Removing the barriers to build greener
Labour’s detailed plans on how they’ll address the net zero challenge shared in the run up to the election, talked about the lengthy application process to get clean energy projects off the ground. They’ve committed to reducing that time from years to months, introducing new targets to ensure project applications stay on track and high value energy projects aren’t lost to bureaucracy and long application processes.
Looking to diversify your career into net zero industry?
If you have transferable skills that will benefit industry sectors such as renewable energy, then we want to hear from you. You can register your CV on our website, sign up to receive job alerts by sector and job discipline, and search our latest net zero roles below:
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