9 hours ago
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Labour has a race on its hands if it is to lock in its promise to achieve a virtually zero-carbon electricity system by 2030.
Britain’s next prime minister will have to move fast: the climate emergency is raging, high energy bills are driving up the cost of living and the reactionary right is threatening a fossil fuel push if it wins power.
In the party’s first two years in office it approved new renewable energy projects at double the rate the Conservatives did in their last two years, a Guardian data analysis found.
So what’s stopping this turning into cheap power? Let’s take a deep dive.
With so many hurdles between approval and operation, it is unsurprising that two years since Labour was elected many question whether it can hit the target of generating 95% of electricity from zero-carbon sources by 2030.
Just months after that landslide, Fintan Slye, the boss of the government’s energy system operator, Neso, told the Guardian the clean power promise was “at the outer limit of what’s achievable”, but doable “if you’re prepared to do things differently and to take difficult decisions early on”.
Swift action, such as lifting the Tories’ effective onshore wind development ban in week one, has borne impressive results. A record number of renewable energy projects received the go-ahead last year, after planning approvals almost doubled year on year amid a shake-up of the system to favour infrastructure projects.
Neso has also reformed the queue for renewable developers to secure a grid connection, clearing hundreds of dubious “zombie” projects – those without the right planning permissions or financing to move forward – to make way for schemes with the best chance of delivering on time.
This has paid dividends, with figures last month revealing that since the start of the year 700 wind, solar, hydro and battery storage projects – many of which faced a decade-long wait to connect to the grid under the previous “first come, first served” system – had been offered a connection date before 2030. That accounts for more than half the renewable energy projects needed to meet the 2030 goal.
Still, the Guardian’s analysis suggests this pace may still be too slow. Industry experts agree. Analysts at Cornwall Insight have warned that hitting the target would require a near flawless delivery of some of the most complex infrastructure projects the UK has ever undertaken, which would be impossible once “real world” risks are taken into account.
Research by consultants at LCP Delta this week found Great Britain’s clean electricity could meet 83% of demand by 2030, falling short of the official target of 95%. This may only be achievable by 2035 under the current rate of progress, it said.
While progress on renewables has already removed coal from the system, gas still plays a key role in balancing demand when the sun does not shine and the wind fails to blow, and made up nearly 27% of total electricity generation last year.
The 2030 target is a manifesto commitment, meaning Andy Burnham is unlikely to retreat from it if he succeeds Keir Starmer as prime minister, as is widely expected – especially with the current energy secretary, net-zero champion Ed Miliband, tipped to stay in the cabinet.
Yet even if the country fails to achieve it, the energy system will have “undergone a profound transformation” by the end of the decade, according to LCP Delta.
“Renewable capacity is set to provide over 70% of our power needs in just a few years, weaning the country off volatile international gas markets whilst halving the power sector carbon emissions compared to 2025,” said the consultancy’s head of UK market strategy, Sam Hollister.
“For consumers, one of the biggest benefits will be greater protection from external gas price shocks. A cleaner power system means lower reliance on gas, helping to shield households from the kind of price volatility seen during recent energy crises while benefiting the climate,” he added.
Tom Edwards, principal modeller at Cornwall Insight, said: “Continuing to make strong progress on the clean energy rollout is vital, not only to build a more secure energy system, but also to make energy more affordable.
“The nearer a power system gets to clean, the fewer hours gas sets the wholesale price, that matters most when prices spike and markets turn volatile, and households will feel it directly on their bills, whether we hit the 2030 target or not.”
For energy developers like SSE, the owner and operator of the Viking windfarm, the existence of a target is more important in mobilising multibillion-pound investment plans than whether the target is ultimately achieved.
“It gives businesses the confidence to invest for the long term,” a spokesperson said, adding that the company was putting £33bn into grids and homegrown energy.
A government spokesperson said: “In the face of the second fossil fuel crisis of this decade, the answer is clear: we need to go further and faster for clean, homegrown power we control.”
Methodology
Data on renewable energy capacity at each stage of the planning pipeline is sourced from the Renewable Energy Planning Database (REPD). Projects that have been marked as abandoned or have had planning permission expire have been removed.
In addition, the REPD only covered projects with an installed capacity of 1MW until 2021 and then 150kW since then. This means some smaller renewable projects – particularly micro solar installations – are not covered.
However, we have also sourced installed wind and solar capacity from the government’s Energy Trends dataset. This was used to construct operational capacity over time and has been combined with REPD figures in our planning pipeline breakdowns to compensate for the REPD’s minimum threshold. Data is up to March 2026.
To calculate project approvals under Labour v the Conservative government, we totalled approvals in REPD during the first 21 months of Labour (from July 2024 to March 2026 inclusive) and the final 21 months of the Conservative government (from October 2022 to July 2024).
Data on projects that have been offered a grid connection has been sourced from the Energy Networks Association, which is tracking the progress of the government’s changes to grid connections. The most recent figures are up to 1 July 2026.
Experts from Barbour and Cornwall Insight provided insight and expertise on the renewable energy pipeline.
While the government targets are presented as a range in its Clean Power 2030 action plan, the Guardian’s visuals uses the midpoint of these ranges.
