With Liz Truss announced as the new leader of the conservative party, the energy sector will not be exempt from the shockwaves felt across the UK that come with a new PM.
Today, the former prime minister Boris Johnson will join Ms Truss at Balmoral where she will be named prime minister by the Queen.
With a new prime minister comes changes to policy and with energy security and the government’s 2030 net zero goals being hot topics, the energy sector is subject to changes.
In her acceptance speech yesterday, Ms Truss promised a “bold plan” to cut taxes, boost the economy and “deliver on the energy crisis, dealing with people’s energy bills but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply”.
“Industry wants to work with Government on our plans to break the link between the exorbitant cost of gas and the price of electricity.”
Leading UK energy sector trade bodies, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) and Renewable UK told Energy Voice their opinions on what the energy sector can expect.
OEUK
Offshore Energies UK said: “The new Prime Minister will need to balance the short term challenge of helping families pay their bills with the longer term challenge of keeping the lights on while tackling the climate emergency. ”
The trade body claims there is enough oil and gas in the UK continental shelf to power the UK into the 2040s and fuel the transition to renewables.
The Aberdeen-based industry body is “ready to work closely with the new prime ministerial team in number 10 Downing Street and with the Chancellor as they are announced in the coming hours and days.”
OEUK has written to the incoming PM to propose a new summit for ministers and energy producers to help plan the way ahead.
OEUK’s acting chief executive, Mike Tholen said: “We welcome Liz Truss to her new role and wish her all the very best in challenging times.
© Supplied by OEUK“A big prime ministerial inbox awaits, on top of which sits UK energy security and its critical place in countering the threat from Putin’s weaponisation of energy.
“As the new PM has said, we need to find a two-pronged solution both in the short- and long-term to the energy crisis.
“OEUK and our members remain steadfast partners for government and we work with political parties of all colours to ensure we carefully nurture and invest in our homegrown oil and gas industry and boost its enablement of our transition to a renewable future.
“We look forward to meeting with the new PM and her top team shortly and ensuring our members are front and centre of the conversations and the solutions.”
Renewable UK
RenewableUK is urging the new Prime Minister Liz Truss to speed up the roll-out of new renewable energy projects to help billpayers and boost the nation’s energy security.
© Supplied by RenewableUKRenewable UK chief executive Dan McGrail said: “We’re looking forward to working with the new Prime Minister and her team to take forward new measures to reduce energy bills, both in the short term and the long term.
“Firstly, it’s vital that she should re-commit to the ambitious targets set out in the Government’s Energy Security Strategy, which will move us further and faster towards energy independence. That means more than quadrupling our offshore wind capacity to 50GW by 2030 – including 5GW of innovative floating wind.
“We need to remove the barriers in the planning system which are unnecessarily delaying offshore wind development, and upgrade our grid so that we can connect new offshore projects more quickly.
“Now is the time to end the block on onshore wind development in England and set a new target for the sector.
“We know onshore wind projects can be up and running within a year of approval, providing the country with much-needed low-cost clean energy, so we’re urging Liz Truss to pull out all the stops to encourage new projects to go ahead in areas where they have local support.
“Industry wants to work with Government on our plans to break the link between the exorbitant cost of gas and the price of electricity.
“This will enable billpayers to benefit more from the vast amounts of low-cost electricity being generated by wind and other renewables, by no longer allowing gas to call the tune in the energy market.
“Green hydrogen generated by electricity from wind is set to be a key technology in our future energy mix, as it can be stored to give us the flexibility to use it whenever we like.
“The Energy Security Strategy sets a target of 10GW of hydrogen capacity by 2030 – at least half of which will be green hydrogen.
“We’re calling on the Prime Minister to recognise the importance of this new technology which offers us the chance to build up a whole new green hydrogen industry, as we’re a world leader in this cutting-edge technology”.
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