The Prime Minister and Welsh First Minister will supercharge efforts to make Britain a clean energy superpower, by investing in homegrown energy to grow the economy, create jobs, boost skills, and strengthen our energy independence.
Visiting a wind farm in West Wales which benefitted from Welsh Government funding, the Prime Minister and First Minister have pledged close cooperation to unleash the benefits of a publicly owned energy company, in the pair’s first official visit since the appointment of the First Minister.
The UK government is seizing the economic opportunity to deliver Great British Energy, that will own and invest in clean power projects in regions and nations across the UK. The company will be backed by £8.3Bn of new money over this Parliament.
Great British Energy is part of the Government’s commitment to make Britain a clean energy superpower, with clean power by 2030. This will boost the country’s energy independence, so that families and businesses are never left that vulnerable again, and kickstart economic growth.
Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru – a company owned by the Welsh Government – was built from scratch in just 12 months and is already boosting Wales’s green economy and setting the UK on course for energy security. This is on course to produce 1 GW of clean energy by 2040 – enough to power up to a million homes in Wales, helping reduce bills in the long term.
The Welsh Government is also already working with The Crown Estate to unlock 1,000sq km of seabed. This will create brand new windfarms that have the capacity to produce up to 4.5 gigawatts of renewable electricity. The Crown Estate estimates this could generate enough electricity to power the equivalent of every home in Wales three times over, or host 1.4 million events at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium a year.
Crown Estate has embarked on the latest phase of its Offshore Wind Leasing Round 5, which will see bidders set out their plans for delivering new wind farms, explaining how this will support the delivery of wider social and economic benefits for onshore communities.
The Crown Estate also estimates these planned windfarms could create more than 5,000 new jobs in construction and deliver a £1.4 billion boost to the economy.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “We have inherited an incoherent energy policy that has left homes up and down the country vulnerable to rocketing energy bills.
“But the Welsh Government has made important strides that we can now build on, and I am determined that Wales is at the very heart of our mission to make Britain an energy superpower, with renewables powering homes right across the country.
“Great British Energy will put the whole of the United Kingdom on the right path to deliver the independence we need, while helping to deliver lower bills for households and businesses and creating the next generation of skilled jobs.”
First Minister of Wales, Eluned Morgan, said: “Our publicly-owned renewable energy developer, Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru, is a long-term sustainable investment that puts net zero and the communities of Wales at the heart of the energy transition.
“While the previous UK government focused on fracking and fossil fuels – opposed by most communities and incompatible with our international obligations – we took positive action to ensure we deliver on our environmental commitments.
“Harvesting our wind and using it to produce power offers us, and the people of Wales, the ability to own the returns on what will be a significant investment.”
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