The head of a global renewable energy business has called for “stability and consistency” after the UK Government watered down its climate change commitments.
Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, chief executive of EDP, which is investing in the UK mainly through wind projects off Scotland, made the comments in response to a series of U-turns on climate targets made by Rishi Sunak.
The prime minister’s decision to delay the pace of the British economy’s transition to net zero - through measures like pushing back the ban on sale of petrol and diesel cars - has drawn international criticism.
“Stability and predictability are absolutely key for any investor,” Stilwell told The Times today.
“These are very long-term investments that we make. They take eight to nine years to develop and then have a useful life of 30 years or more.
“To have predictability, to know the rules of the game are consistent over time is extremely important. Uncertainty is bad for investment and for decision-making. We like to know what we can count on. There should be some consistency in their policy, independently of the politics.”
Among its developments is the Ocean Winds (OW) joint venture between its renewable division and the French company Engie.
OW is currently operating, building and developing three other offshore wind projects: Moray East (950 MW, in operations), Moray West (882 MW, under construction) and Caledonia (awarded in 2022, for a plant up to 2 GW).
The award of two additional projects in the ScotWind round means that OW has now a total portfolio of 6.1 GW in the UK, and the projects portfolio of Ocean Winds up to 14.5 GW globally.
Referring to EDP’s Scottish project, he called for greater investment in the UK’s transmission lines. “We need to bring along local communities but we need government support for that,” he said.
“It’s important to have transmission-line networks and there should be a reinforced investment in networks because the renewable energy that’s being produced, for example, up in Scotland, needs to be able to get where there is consumption, like in England, and that is also a difficulty.