UK: the keys to meeting the CP2030 objective

Few things exemplified the newly elected Labour government’s ambitions for change last year than its proposals for the energy sector. Days into Sir Kier Starmer’s leadership, the administration unleashed a barrage of clean energy plans.  

One of the most eye-catching moves was to bring forward the date for power sector decarbonisation by five years, from 2035 to 2030—a target that some have said could be impossible to meet. But the UK’s National Energy System Operator (NESO), a strategic adviser to the government and the regulator Ofgem, is determined to try. 

Its Clean Power 2030 report, or CP2030, notes that the revised goal “is a huge challenge” but is achievable. “Several elements must deliver at the limit of what is feasible,” it says.

“A key challenge will be making sure all deliver simultaneously, in full and at maximum pace, in a way that does not overheat supply chains, is sustainable and sets Great Britain on the right path beyond 2030. Clean power will require doing things differently. It will only be achieved with bold action and sustained momentum.”

For example, says the report, Britain will need to make it easier for households and businesses to participate in flexibility markets, whereby energy use can be adapted to renewable power generation patterns. 

The country will also need to scale up clean energy procurement to levels never seen before, contracting as much offshore wind in the next two years as it has in the last six and building as much transmission network infrastructure in the coming five years as it has in the last decade. 

Batteries provide "vital system services"

Key to meeting the scale and speed of the challenge will be reforms to grid connection processes in 2025, along with changes to project planning and consenting. 

“Key decisions on funding, awarding contracts, consenting and policy are needed within the next year to ensure construction on key projects starts as soon as possible,” says CP2030, which was published in November 2024.

“Delivery of a clean power system in 2030 will require an installed generation and storage capacity of around 210 to 220 GW and significant levels of new demand connections to the electricity network across transmission and distribution.”

With these assumptions in mind, CP2030 sets out two pathways to decarbonise the electricity sector by the end of the decade. The first, called Further Flex and Renewables, envisages no new dispatchable plants and almost 51 GW of offshore wind generation. 

The second, New Dispatch, includes 2.7 GW of dispatchable generation, from gas-fired turbines either burning low-carbon hydrogen or natural gas with carbon capture and storage to eliminate emissions, which could bring the level of offshore wind needed down to 43 GW.

Both scenarios will also require massive increases in the level of battery storage across the UK. “The principal role of batteries today is to provide within-day flexibility by cycling regularly to help match supply and demand,” says CP2030. 

“Additionally, they provide vital system services, such as frequency response, for which their role is likely to grow to 2030 as use of gas generation falls.”

Under New Dispatch, battery capacity rises from 4.7 GW in 2023 to 22.6 GW in 2030. In the Further Flex and Renewables scenario, the capacity rises to 27.4 GW, an almost sixfold increase.

This makes it sound as though developers should be building new battery plants wherever they can, but experience at Pacific Green suggests otherwise. Indeed, poor planning of battery project sites could hinder rather than help Britain’s 2030 electricity supply goals. 

Even with the urgency imposed by the 2030 timeframe, new battery plants will require vetting by authorities and local communities. Indeed, as projects proliferate the level of scrutiny is likely to rise, since sought-after locations will soon be exhausted. 

Reviewing project applications is a time-consuming business that ties up a rather limited cadre of experts. Each project that ultimately fails to meet the criteria for development is one that eats into the time available to sign off a more promising scheme. 

This has already become apparent in recent years as the grid connection process has been blocked with a mass of poor-quality project proposals. 

Recently, NESO has taken steps to remedy this situation by allowing zombie projects—those with little chance of success—to abandon the connection queue without penalty, and by imposing strict deadlines on the remaining developments. 

As 2030 draws near, however, it will be important for developers and financiers to do their part in making sure project permitting can proceed as quickly and efficiently as possible. 

Here, Pacific Green can point to the experience at the Richborough and Sheaf energy parks, where energy storage capacity is being added to the system at scale and at pace thanks to careful planning. 

Both parks are located on brownfield land, which makes permitting easy, and are close to a substation, which facilitates grid connection. 

Other factors that have helped speed the development of the energy parks are the involvement of an experienced team and the fact that the developer has deep and robust connections with the supply chain, offtakers and the finance community.

Potential boost for GDP and employment

All this makes it easy to find buyers for the projects under development, which is ultimately the key to scaling up deployment rates to the level required for CP2030. Without accurate site selection to speed up permitting and guarantee successful, profitable development, it is unlikely that Britain will meet is 2030 energy sector goals. 

At stake here is not just the transformation of the UK electricity system but also the country’s industrial competitiveness. 

As NESO notes in the CP2030 report, “The power system is a key enabler of sustainable economic growth. Households and businesses rely on access to electricity for their day-to-day needs, while increasingly demanding clean power. 

“The transition to a clean power system by 2030 will have significant impacts on the wider national economy. The large increase in capital investment for clean power could potentially boost GDP and employment rates either locally or across Great Britain, but this is dependent on wider macroeconomic policy and supply-side capabilities.”