“The UK’s business secretary has proposed tripling the number of solar panels and doubling onshore wind power in the country by 2030, a move that offers cheap domestic energy but risks strong local protests.
Kwasi Kwarteng’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has put forward ambitious targets for the expansion of renewable energy generation in the forthcoming energy security white paper.
Yet the paper has been delayed by several weeks while the Treasury wrangles over the cost of approving the six or more nuclear power stations envisaged in the strategy.
Rishi Sunak, chancellor, is understood to be concerned about the potential cost of underwriting and co-investing in more atomic plants beyond the 3.2GW Hinkley Point C, which is under construction, and Sizewell C in Suffolk, that will have the same generation capacity and in which the government plans to take a 20 per cent stake.”
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Pickard, Jim, Gill Plimmer and George Parker. Finacial Times 28 March 2022.