Solar panel installations on homes hit record levels this year. Dozens of small nuclear power stations are also due to be built in the next couple of decades, while a new generation of gigantic onshore wind farms are expected to spring up in the English countryside after the Government lifted an effective ban on them in England that had been in place since 2015. One proposal would see 41 turbines with blade tips rising 200 metres into the sky (42 metres higher than Blackpool Tower) put up near Hebden Bridge on the South Pennine Moors, making it England\u2019s biggest wind farm.<\/p>\n
The solar and wind power revolution will transform large parts of the landscape, as Britain works frantically to close down almost all remaining gas-fired power stations in the next five years and replace them with \u201cclean\u201d energy. The Government is looking to double the total amount of electricity generated in the UK by 2050 as the country weans itself off gas central heating and onto more environmentally-friendly heat pumps, which run on electricity.<\/p>\n
All of which will require dozens of huge new solar and wind farms, and mile after mile of high-power overhead electricity cables to plug them into the grid and transport the electricity to people\u2019s homes up and down the country.<\/p>\n
Most of that infrastructure will be built in the countryside, with Lincolnshire in particular set to see a protracted bout of construction. Labour has given the green light for four of the UK\u2019s biggest solar farms to be built in the area since returning to power. The four giant windfarms would collectively cover an area of 15 square miles spread across 100 square miles of land.<\/p>\n
The Government insists that the development will take up less than 1 per cent of the UK\u2019s agricultural land. But many locals are understandably angry and anxious about the huge disruption to their particular part of that 1 per cent during construction; to their lives, the spoiled views afterwards and the risk of falling house prices.<\/p>\n
From a national perspective, though, there are strong arguments in favour of this wave of development. First and, for many, foremost, they pave the way for cheaper energy bills.<\/p>\n
In fact, the cost of power generated by solar and wind farms built in recent years is already generally much lower than that produced by gas-fired power plants. Government analysis found that electricity generated by a gas-fired power plant built now would be almost three times more expensive than that produced by a solar or onshore windfarm; gas would cost \u00a3114 per mw\/h compared to \u00a341 for solar farms and \u00a338 for onshore wind. And that gap will only widen as expertise in solar and wind power improves.<\/p>\n
Homes with their own solar panels have seen energy bills plummet too, though for many those savings will be needed to repay the upfront costs of the installations. Still, a typical homeowner can expect to save \u00a3500 a year from their solar panels. The average installation cost of around \u00a37,000 is typically paid off between eight and 15 years after, depending on the efficiency of the panels \u2013 and how much sun they see.<\/p>\n
For those of us without solar panels, the effects of the cheaper renewable energy produced by power companies have yet to show up clearly in our bills<\/a> because they are being masked by the high upfront costs<\/a> of building new solar and wind farms and of overhauling the electricity grid. <\/p>\n A \u00a328bn investment in the energy network announced this week, rising to \u00a390bn by 2031, is a case in point: it will add about \u00a3108 to annual bills by 2031 (\u00a348 of that spent on maintaining the gas network and \u00a368 upgrading the electricity grid), but Ofgem says it will also save \u00a380 a year. So, we end up with a net bill of \u00a330 for work that paves the way for cheaper bills in future. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, the energy price cap is set to go up by \u00a33 a year on January 1, although the average energy bill will be cut by \u00a3150 from April<\/a> after the Government announced it would move some of those wind and solar subsidies from electricity bills into general taxation in last week\u2019s Budget.<\/p>\n But if new solar and wind farms weren\u2019t being built, our ageing fleet of gas power stations would instead need substantial maintenance investment which would also push up bills in the short term. Persevere with renewables, however, and annual energy bills are predicted to be \u00a3716 cheaper in 2050 than today, with households saving an additional \u00a3700 at that point by swapping their petrol or diesel vehicle for an electric one, according to Government advisor the Climate Change Committee.<\/p>\n Clean energy also represents a significant economic opportunity, with the net-zero sector already supporting nearly one million jobs across the UK and Government plans to create a further 400,000 jobs in the sector in the next five years.<\/p>\n \t\tYour next read<\/p>\n
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