If the UK government keeps its promise to support up to 10 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind in the next decade, it would leave no room for other renewables after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) slashed its forecasts for new renewable power capacity by more than a third for the period, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
Last year, DECC said 34 gigawatts of new renewable capacity would be built by 2025. Now, it has reduced this figure to 22GW.
Richard Nourse, managing partner at Greencoat Capital, told Carbon Brief that DECC’s new forecasts see just 10GW of new renewables being added in total during the 2020s.
Last week, Rudd said the government would support up to 10GW of offshore wind during the decade. Her department’s forecast would therefore leave no room for other renewables to be built — whether onshore wind, solar, tidal, biomass or other.
In total, DECC’s latest forecasts see 27GW of renewables being added to 2030. For comparison, the Committee on Climate Change suggests at least 40GW must be added in order to stay on track for the UK’s carbon budgets.
The updated forecasts were published last week in an annex on DECC’s website, on the same day as Rudd was giving her speech on a new direction for UK energy policy.
The forecasts suggest it will now be harder for the UK to meet its legally-binding carbon budget for 2028-32.