In the beginning there was net zero, a target for 2050 enshrined in the Climate Change Act 2008. It committed the UK to an ambitious target of producing no pollution through greenhouse gases, such as from fossil fuels, in an effort to avoid average global heat rising beyond 1.5 degrees
But then there was Clean Power 2030. A plan launched with a fanfare by then UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband and then Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and spearheaded by Chris Stark, a Glaswegian with the improbable job title of head of mission control.
The aim was to have a wholly clean energy system, powered by renewable technologies, mostly solar and wind, except with just five per cent gas power, for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow, and some baseload nuclear power. This, they said, would provide all of our electricity needs. Hello, nirvana.
This first deadline is hurtling towards us in just under 40 months. Albeit you can add another cheeky 12 months because the UK government is counting to the end of 2030 rather than from 1 January.
Nevertheless, most experts with a grasp of how the UK energy system works don’t think we will quite get there. But we could get close. Mostly the UK remains largely reliant on fossil fuels for 75 per cent across the whole energy system.
DNV, an energy adviser, in its annual tracker on the UK climate targets, states: “We forecast that, despite making significant progress, Clean Power 2030 will not be achieved in its entirety. In 2030, the UK will still rely on unabated gas-fired generation for 15 per cent of its electricity needs (reduced from 41 per cent in 2023).
“Clean Power 2030 will require around £40bn of investment on average per year to install clean sources of power at a pace.”
So here’s what we have to do to get as close as we can.
1. Keep moving with grid upgrade – but listen to locals
Drive through Angus, Aberdeenshire, around towns and villages like Stonehaven and Drumoak, you will see the signs: ‘Stop SSEN monster pylons’. This is one of several campaigns springing up across the UK, particularly in rural and coastal areas, as communities are coming to grips with the impact of a £90bn ‘great grid upgrade’ investment programme to 2031.
This will see a new network of beefed-up overhead lines, sub-stations, subsea inter-connectors, built by the five UK distribution network operators, including UK-listed National Grid; SSEN, controlled by the Perth-based SSE; Iberdrola-owned SP Energy Networks; and UK Power Networks, which owns the power infrastructure for Heathrow and Gatwick alongside most of the homes in the south-east of England and which was acquired by France’s Engie in a £10.5bn takeover in February.
The energy regulator Ofgem and the state-owned National Electricity System Operator (NESO) oversee the activity.
They estimate this investment will add £108 to bills by 2031, which the UK says is a fair trade for getting consumers off the ‘fossil fuel rollercoaster’ caused by spikes in the wholesale oil and gas price which underpins energy consumption costs in the UK – albeit not all of them.
2. Give communities more onshore wind benefits
The number of wind turbines on hills across the UK – but mostly Scotland, as it has more hills and wind – will have to double by 2030.
NESO has predicted the 14.2GW of power the UK has (as of Q2 2024) provided by onshore wind farms will have to reach
27-29GW.
The number and size of the turbines will vary – higher towers, bigger blades, more efficient generators – will be brought on stream and replace existing wind farms that are coming to the end of their lifespan.
ScottishPower Renewables has ‘repowered’ Scotland’s oldest commercial wind farm, Hagshaw Hill Windfarm in South Lanarkshire. It also plans for a £1.5bn rebuild of the Whitelee, the UK’s largest onshore wind farm.
Many communities such as those in the Highlands are fighting against more onshore wind. But this is sometimes assuaged as developers which contribute to community benefit funds worth about £75m per year that support local projects.
Campaigners say much more of the repowered energy bonanza should go to not-for-profit community enterprise.
Meanwhile the Scottish Government and the UK’s energy company, Great British Energy, also called GB Energy, is looking more at community-owned power generation to take up any slack.
3. Allow offshore projects with strict rules to protect nature
The bigger prize for Clean Power 2030 is offshore wind, which is set to treble in capacity from a 2024 base line of 14.8GW to 43 to 50GW. Developers agree the price they get for electricity generated from offshore wind farms via the UK government’s contracts for difference (CfD) auctions.
CfDs also fund other clean power technologies but the bulk in terms of energy producing capacity since the programme started in 2014 has been offshore wind.
The main hurdles for increasing vast near-shore and shallow water wind power, which use fixed-bottom turbines, are often planning rules, safety of inshore fishing grounds and the protection of seabirds.
Scotland’s largest planned offshore wind farm, SSE’s giant Berwick Bank, is subject to a huge campaign against led by RSPB over fears of threats to guillemots, kittiwakes, gannets and puffins, particularly the Bass Rock, one of the most important seabird colonies in the world.
4. Invest more in floating wind supply chain
Arguably a bigger prize is the UK’s plan to develop floating offshore wind capacity in deeper water further out to sea. [It’s what Adrian Gillespie of Scottish Enterprise is predicting in The Big Interview]. But the technology is also more challenging.
There are currently two floating wind farms in Scotland. The largest of these, 15km offshore from Aberdeen at five turbines, is the Kincardine offshore wind farm. Developed by Flotation Energy and now owned by Spain’s Cobra Industrial Services, part of the ACS Group, is offering lessons to operators with plans for projects 10 and 20 times the generation power.
Scotland is leading the world in terms of its ambitions to build floating offshore wind, targeting 23.5GW – the equivalent of five Sizewell C nuclear power plants.
The most advanced large-scale project in the UK is Green Volt. Also led by Flotation Energy, launched by former deputy first minister Lord Nicol Stephen and owned by Japan’s utility Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Green Volt has won a CfD, planning permission for offshore and onshore cabling connecting it to the grid, and may begin producing by 2029.
However projects, through Crown Scotland Estate’s ScotWind licensing round, have stalled or been mothballed. [Crown Estate Scotand’s Lynsey Shovlin, Offshore Wind Development Manager (Supply Chain) will be speaking at The Business of Energy conference in December].
Connection charges, the TNUoS [transmission network use of system], levied by transmission owners add crippling costs in the regions of tens of million, a problem particularly affecting Scottish generation projects due to their distance from areas of population. NESO isn’t going to address this until at least 2029.
5. Get solar panels on more buildings in Scotland
The number of solar power farms producing energy across the UK will more than treble, from 16.6GW to 45 to 47GW. The question is where will all the required rare earth metals be sourced, if not from China? Nevertheless, Scotland needs to work harder to persuade homes and businesses to use solar power to stem bills.
6. Increase use of pumped storage to fill energy gap
Batteries, either in the form of steel boxes built next to sub-stations or solar farms, or giant long duration energy storage projects – mostly pumped storage hydro schemes such as Drax’s Cruachan and others carved out of the Caledonian mountains next to Loch Ness, will need to quadruple.
Standard battery technology, hungry for land and again rare earth metals, needs to build up from 4.5GW to 23-27GW by 2030. Pumped hydro is able to be switched on in seconds to smooth out peaks in energy demand.
Meanwhile the UK has committed to support carbon capture and storage (CCS) as part of its road to net zero in 2050 with some projects due to come on stream before 2030.
These are most likely to be in Teesside and Humberside, a project led by the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) with BP, France’s TotalEnergies and Norway’s Equinor, and another major industrial decarbonisation scheme around the Stanflow refinery, owned by India’s EET and with Italy’s Eni, operator of the former Liverpool Bay oil and gas fields. These have reached financial close and are likely to start storing carbon before 2030.
A similar scheme in Peterhead which plans to store carbon in disused North Sea gas fields with a new gas plant with CCS planned alongside has hit delays.
7. Insist that Scotland’s ports get offshore wind work
In order to build offshore wind, ports need to be redeveloped to help build out the 50GW of offshore wind planned for development. However, many port operators are in a chicken versus egg investment situation.
Ardersier in the Highlands is a good example. The vast site was acquired by Haventus, backed by US investor Quantum Capital. These alongside the Scottish National Investment Bank (The Bank) and the National Wealth Fund have invested £400m in the site which remains starkly empty.
They were dealt a blow when the UK Government blocked a £1.5bn investment by China’s Ming Yang Smart Energy, the world’s largest offshore wind manufacturer, on grounds of security risk.
8. Double down on innovation on key infrastructure
Demand for shipping capacity, particularly heavy lift and cable lay vessels, is rising with questions over where the UK’s projects will be in the queue.
There are similar challenges for high-voltage cable manufacturing capacity – projects led by Poland-owned JDR and Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation are coming on stream in the UK. However investment in moorings are on hold as the UK’s offshore wind industry delays have impacted decisions to base manufacturing near UK ports.
9. Get Grangemouth working on next generation fuels
The UK only started requiring jet fuel suppliers to have 2 per cent sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) content in 2025 and this will rise to just 10 per cent by 2030.
The premature closure of the Grangemouth refinery has led to a fresh opportunity to produce SAF bio-fuels on the site. More action is needed.
10. Do we or don’t we? Make up the mind on new nuclea
The UK heralded a new ‘golden age’ of nuclear when it confirmed plans to back French-owned EDF’s £48bn 3.2GW Hinkley Point C nuclear power station, with first power scheduled to come on stream between 2029 and 2031.
EDF has also confirmed it will be further extending the lives of four generating advanced gas-cooled reactor (AGR) stations, with two of the AGR fleet, Heysham 2 and Torness, expected to be generating and providing ‘clean power’ until 2030.
However, the UK has yet to determine where high level radioactive waste from new nuclear power stations such Hinkley C or a new generation of small modular reactors due to start coming on stream in mid-2030s will be stored via deep geological facilities.
The Scottish Government is still resisting the next stages of nuclear power. It’s decision time.
Erikka Askeland will be speaking as chair at THE BUSINESS OF ENERGY conference on Tuesday 1 December 2026. Book your ticket now.
Featured in the Autumn 2026 edition of The Business magazine.
Distributed with The Sunday Times Scotland.
FAQs
What is the UK’s Clean Power 2030 target?
Clean Power 2030 aims to create a predominantly clean electricity system powered by technologies including offshore and onshore wind, solar and nuclear, with a limited role for unabated gas generation.
How much investment will Clean Power 2030 require?
Energy adviser DNV estimates that approximately £40 billion of investment will be required each year to install clean power sources at the necessary pace, alongside major upgrades to Britain’s electricity grid.
What role could Scotland play in delivering clean power?
Scotland could make a major contribution through onshore and floating offshore wind, pumped-storage hydro, carbon capture, renewable-energy manufacturing, port infrastructure and the production of sustainable aviation fuels at Grangemouth.
What are the principal barriers to achieving Clean Power 2030?
The challenges include slow grid connections, planning delays, community opposition, transmission charges, constrained supply chains, uncertainty surrounding nuclear power and the need to balance development with the protection of communities and nature.
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