By Nicholas Earl
The government must do more to unlock private investment for green projects or risk missing its decarbonisation targets, MPs have warned.
A new report from the Public Accounts Committee has called on the government to provide a more coherent delivery plan to lure investment into renewable projects in order to help remove fossil fuels from the country’s electricity system by 2035.
The Westminster group warned that energy security secretary Grant Shapps still has “a lot to do if the government is to achieve its ambition.”
To meet this goal, the panel cautioned against further policy instability,including the imposition and frequent tinkering with the windfall tax, and the stop-start nature of initiatives such as the green homes grant voucher scheme, which have eroded investor confidence in government.
They also believed that the government needs to bring together its raft of energy plans into one single coherent strategy so it can better communicate to investors where funds should be directed.
It argued this would “provide confidence to the private sector” which would be “essential” as the UK “will rely on private investments worth hundreds of billions of pounds in new and upgraded infrastructure.”
“We have already attracted £120bn of private investment in renewables since 2010 and expect to attract a further £100bn of investment which will support up to 480,000 jobs by 2030,” a department for energy security and net zero spokesperson said.
