A new manifesto from renewable energy trade body RenewableUK aims to set out a ‘route map’ to delivering a carbon-free energy generation system in the UK.

The launch of the document “Roadmap to net zero: a manifesto for a fully decarbonised power system by 2035” was a key part of RenewableUK’s Global Offshore Wind 2022 event in Manchester last week.

In it RenewableUK set out a series of key measures aiming to ensure that the UK’s electricity system is decarbonised by the middle of the next decade.

This drive will produce a major slew of opportunities – and challenges – for the East of England as it plays a very significant part in energy generation in the years to come.

In the report the trade body is calling for a series of market and regulatory reforms including totally phasing out unabated gas generation as a key part of achieving the UK’s net zero emissions by 2050 target.

These moves, the body said, will reduce the UK’s current vulnerability to the surging cost of gas – following Russia's invasion of Ukraine – by maximising the benefits of the country's cheapest forms of renewable power and rapidly developing a new green hydrogen industry.

The report sets out a wide range of recommendations including the current Contracts for Difference (CfD) energy projects bidding system to attract more investment.

Renewable UK argued that while the current CfD system has successfully delivered new renewable generation capacity, the way the current market is set up may not be enough to deliver the volume of projects needed to fully decarbonise by 2035.

As other countries seek also to decarbonise, the resulting surging global demand for offshore wind is increasing competition for investment and putting pressure on the supply chains, the businesses that will help deliver it.

The trade body argues that an “evolution” of the CfD system is needed to incentivise long-term capital investment in major projects, build up supply chains and ensure that consumers are provided with clean energy at low and stable prices.

Specific proposals in the document are for the government to consider new offshore wind enterprise zones where businesses can qualify for tax relief – this would be similar to the system currently operating in the US.

It also for government and industry to streamline the process for developing new offshore wind sites, bringing together skills, experience and capacity which is currently spread across a wide range of disparate bodies. This should result, it said in a centralised regulatory authority for consenting and licensing new energy projects.

A key plank of the manifesto is a call for a fundamental redesign of the power network infrastructure is planned and delivered – what is built and where to connect offshore windfarms to the grid and so mimimise the impact on local communities.

RenewablesUK recommends using the current Offshore Transmission Network Review to establish a long-term solution for planning grid infrastructure.

This proposal will be very much welcomed in the East of England where the development of network infrastructure to bring offshore-generated power into the grid is becomingly an increasingly fraught issue.

Two weeks Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils called for an urgent government review of the number and scale of energy infrastructure projects which they said could be “potentially devastating” for local communities.

The leaders of both councils wrote to the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy calling for a wider review to include developments such as solar farms and battery storage projects, for which the councils are seeing increasing numbers of applications.

The councils have objected to plans for the East Anglia GREEN project which would see overhead lines between Norwich, Bramford and Tilbury.

Mid Suffolk Council leader Suzie Morley said at the time: “We fully recognise the importance of the government’s net zero agenda and the need for ongoing energy security for our communities, but we have serious concerns at the seeming lack of strategic coordination of the delivery of energy generation, transmission, and distribution development proposals across the region.”

RenewableUK chief executive Dan McGrail said: “The gas crisis and invasion of Ukraine have pushed up the cost of fossil fuels - and consumer bills - to record highs. We need to decarbonise at pace to build a home-grown clean power sector as the cornerstone of the Government’s Energy Security Strategy.

“Meeting the target of decarbonising our power system completely by 2035 is our biggest challenge yet, but the industry stands ready to deliver and the recommendations in our manifesto set out exactly how this can be achieved.”