The newly elected Labour government has made the establishment of a state-owned Great British Energy (GBE) company one of its first legislative priorities. A bill to set up GBE was included in the King’s Speech, which outlined the government’s legislative programme for the year ahead.
The speech, delivered on 17 July by the King, announced that Great British Energy Bill will establish a publicly owned clean power company headquartered in Scotland. The speech’s background notes confirmed that GBE will take a stake in renewable energy projects and supply chains.
It is ‘highly unlikely’ that the private sector can deliver the scale and pace of investment required to meet the government’s 2030 mission to decarbonise the electricity system, according to the document.
A public energy company, combined with additional electricity market reforms, could help mitigate existing market failures and increase the speed and reduce the cost of deploying renewable generation capacity, it added. As well as facilitating the production, distribution, storage and supply of clean energy, GBE’s remit will cover improvements to energy efficiency.
The speech also included a Planning and Infrastructure Bill to streamline the process of delivering ‘critical’ projects, such as upgrades to the national grid and a push for more renewable energy, helping to ‘unlock’ delivery of the government’s 2030 clean power mission.
This bill will also simplify the consenting process for major infrastructure and ensure that the National Policy Statements for such projects are updated every five years.
Further legislation grants The Crown Estate power to borrow from the Exchequer so that it can free up its ‘large’ cash reserves to invest in new projects, which it says is ‘particularly critical’ for accelerating the pace of offshore wind deployment on areas of seabed that it leases out.
