Oil permits, wind crisis: in the United Kingdom, the horizon for renewables is darkening

At the end of July, the government of conservative Rishi Sunak promised "hundreds" of new licenses for exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in the North Sea, arousing the ire of environmentalists.

At the beginning of August, the NGO Greenpeace covered the Prime Minister's private residence with a huge "oil black" tarpaulin to denounce "a new drilling frenzy".

“Any government support for hydrocarbons has a negative impact on the energy transition,” insists Erik Dalhuijsen, co-creator of Aberdeen Climate Action, interviewed by AFP on the sidelines of the Offshore Europe conference.

“Launching new oil fields is not very consistent with carbon neutrality,” adds Jean Boucher, member of Extinction Rebellion in Aberdeen, and environmental sociologist.

Other bad news, on the wind power front, a sector at the heart of the British energy transition plan: the government of conservative Rishi Sunak announced on Friday that it had not managed to award new permits to build offshore fields in its last call for tenders, due to lack of candidates.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has caused inflation and production costs to soar around the world, which is reflected in the prices of steel and other materials for building wind turbines, while tariffs on electricity that energy companies can charge are capped.

Result: companies in the sector claim that these projects are no longer profitable.

The environmental NGO Greenpeace denounced “the worst disaster for clean energy in at least a decade”, which according to it “endangers the British decarbonization objectives”.

The Swedish energy company Vattenfall has already thrown in the towel on a vast project, Norfolk Boreas, and others could follow.

“I know that other companies are carefully studying their permits and their ability to invest” in wind power in the United Kingdom, argues Michael Tholen, director of sustainability of the energy lobby Offshore Energy UK (OEUK), interviewed by the AFP at the Offshore Europe conference, which was held this week in Aberdeen.

New priorities

Mads Nipper, boss of the Danish electricity giant Orsted, also tried to warn that “offshore ambitions will only be realized with healthy tender frameworks and realistic prices”.

Days before Friday's embarrassing admission of failure, Downing Street had just lifted a de facto ban on building new onshore wind farms, which had been hailed as a step in the right direction, but too timid.

The war in Ukraine has changed London's stated priorities.

“There has been interference between energy security and carbon neutrality” in government priorities, especially since there have been “many political changes in recent years” at the head of the country, notes Clare Bond, professor in geophysics at the University of Aberdeen, interviewed by AFP.

NGOs, experts, and companies in the sector are calling for urgent reform of the tender processes to, for example, introduce the idea of ​​a minimum profit for energy companies, as suggested by Erik Dalhuijsen.

Others emphasize the need for long-term stability in taxation and regulation.

“We need to put the right framework in place and restore investor confidence,” insists Clare Bond, from the University of Aberdeen.

At least 100 billion pounds of private sector investment in hydrocarbons or "offshore" wind power is necessary for the United Kingdom to achieve its carbon neutrality objective in 2050 and for its energy supply, OEUK argued last week in a report.

For Mr. Dalhuijsen, the objective of carbon neutrality in 2050 is still theoretically achievable, "but it is more and more difficult. We must reduce CO2 emissions and with each year that passes, it becomes twice as difficult or almost".