SSE has called on the Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) Minister Chris Skidmore to increase the 6GW cap on new offshore wind in the UK.
According to SSE, the current Contracts for Difference (CfD) auction includes a limited capacity of offshore renewables set before the Committee on Climate Change published its report and the government passed the Net Zero by 2050 law.
In his letter, SSE Chief Executive Alistair Phillips-Davies asked Minister Skidmore to revisit previously held assumptions about the future of the UK energy system and increase the scale of renewable power.
The Net Zero law is an ambitious goal which requires an equally ambitious action, the company said, emphasizing that increasing the 6GW cap will allow the UK to show it is serious about the new law and fighting climate change.
“The net zero commitment is a positive development, but none of us should underestimate the scale of the challenge that it poses,” Phillips-Davies wrote.
“Offshore wind will play a crucial role in providing affordable low carbon power and the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has suggested 75GW of offshore generation may be required by 2050, compared to 8GW today and 30GW targeted by the Government’s sector deal for 2030. Increasing offshore capacity in line with the CCC advice is challenging but achievable.”
As reported earlier, BEIS opened the third CfD allocation round at the end of May, in which a total of 6GW of renewable energy capacity will be allocated. The selected projects are scheduled to come online in 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.
The UK government recently passed the law to bring all its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, becoming the first major economy to undertake such a commitment.