By Susanna Twidale
OXFORD (Reuters) – Britain can meet its target of offshore wind deployment by 2030 even after an auction last year failed to secure any new capacity, Britain’s minister for Energy Security and Net Zero told Reuters on Tuesday.
As a part of efforts to reach its climate targets, Britain has a goal to reach 50 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity by 2030 up from around 15 GW now.
Earlier this month, Britain said its next auction to spur renewable power projects will be worth more than 1 billion pounds.
“It’s challenging. We set it as an ambition (the capacity goal) but this is a record amount… four times higher than the budget we set last time and of course the budget can also be increased,” Minister Graham Stuart told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of an energy conference in Oxford.
The government has not specified how much capacity it expects to secure in the next auction, but the 2030 offshore wind goal can still be met, Stuart said.
Across Europe and in Britain, pressures linked to elections and increased living costs have raised doubts that governments can meet goals for renewable energy and targets of net zero emissions by the middle of the century.
Industry has lobbied for action to remove what it sees as a competitive disadvantage from countries with lower costs because of less stringent climate regulation.
Britain last week launched a consultation on how it should apply a carbon import levy on some products from 2027 to help to protect businesses against cheaper imports.
The steel sector, for instance, said Britain’s carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) should start earlier so that it is line with the European Union, which will impose a CBAM on some sectors in 2026.
Stuart said the one year difference could be an advantage.
“We want to make sure we do the analysis and get it right. We can learn from the EU experience and then ensure our CBAM is as well constituted as possible,” he said.
(Reporting By Susanna Twidale; editing by Barbara Lewis)
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