Rishi Sunak announces new gas power stations to ease risk of blackouts

Britain will build new gas power stations, Rishi Sunak has said, as he vows not to risk blackouts to achieve net zero.

The country will need gas as a back-up when there is not enough wind or sun to create renewable energy, the Prime Minister says in an article for The Telegraph.

Despite having pledged to phase out fossil fuels by 2050 to achieve net zero carbon emissions, Mr Sunak says new gas power stations will ensure energy security and therefore the safety of the nation.

Writing in The Telegraph, he says: “When the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing, this is how we will keep your lights on and your bills down.

“It is the insurance policy Britain needs to protect our energy security, while we deliver our net zero transition.”

He adds that the approach of the Labour Party – which has pledged to create a green electricity system by 2030, five years earlier than the Tories – would “put us at risk of blackouts”.

Mr Sunak is seeking to draw a dividing line between the Conservative Party’s approach to net zero and that of Labour.

The Government said the move to back new unabated gas plants – meaning their emissions are not captured – was a “common sense” approach to net zero, that would ensure the country met its green goals in a “sustainable, pragmatic way”.

The Prime Minister has faced criticism from Tory MPs who feel he is moving too fast on his green targets and has been urged to reverse course ahead the election.

Mr Sunak says: “We will deliver net zero, but not by piling thousands of pounds worth of costs on to hard-pressed households, and not by imperilling national security by relying on the likes of Russia.”

He says the war in Ukraine has underscored the need to be self-sufficient for its energy needs, after Russia squeezed gas supplies to Europe, ramping up prices.

Under the proposals, which will be announced by Claire Coutinho, the Energy Secretary, on Tuesday, the Government will extend the life of existing unabated gas power plants and support the building of new ones to supply power until at least 2035 through a mechanism ultimately paid for by household energy bills.

There are 32 gas-fired power stations in the UK, many of them built in the 1990s and coming to the end of their life. The last new unabated gas plant was announced in 2018. Meanwhile, electricity demand is expected to grow significantly as more households adopt electric cars and heat pumps.

In addition, a parliamentary report last year said the UK was not on track to meet its 2035 clean energy goal because of delays to the construction of new nuclear, onshore and offshore wind. Last month, a separate report by Public First warned that delays to new nuclear power stations would leave the UK at risk of blackouts by 2028.

The announcement comes in a package of proposals to reform the electricity market, which include a plan to make power cheaper in areas with more onshore wind and solar power.

The Government said the plan would ultimately save households £45 on their annual electricity bill, although it could mean power is cheaper in Scotland than England.

A No 10 source said: “We will get to net zero but we will not be so ideological like Labour and ram it through so fast that it imposes costs that people in this country frankly can’t afford.”

Ms Coutinho will outline the plans during a speech at Chatham House in which she is expected to say the UK “must be realistic” in its move toward clean energy.

She is expected to say: “There are no two ways about it. Without gas backing up renewables, we face the genuine prospect of blackouts. Other countries in recent years have been so threatened by supply constraints that they have been forced back to coal.

“There are no easy solutions in energy, only trade-offs. If countries are forced to choose between clean energy and keeping citizens safe and warm, believe me they’ll choose to keep the lights on.

“We will not let ourselves be put in that position. And so, as we continue to move towards clean energy, we must be realistic.”

The Government said the decision was based on new modelling out on Tuesday from consultancy Baringa that it said showed new unabated gas would be necessary in a green electricity system by 2035.

The Climate Change Committee, parliament’s advisers on net zero, have said a green electricity system by 2035 would be more expensive and risky without unabated gas.

The Government plans to support new gas plants through its existing capacity market, which ensures generators produce power at times of peak demand, and which is paid through energy bills.

The move angered some environmental groups, who say it shows the Government is backsliding on net zero and may threaten green investment.

But the Government insisted support for new gas plants was compatible with its pledge for a clean electricity grid by 2035.

It pointed to the UK’s success in reducing its carbon emissions compared with other developed economies, as new analysis from Carbon Brief showed they are at their lowest point since 1879.

Tory backbenchers have repeatedly called for Mr Sunak to scale back his net zero ambitions, such as placing quotas on the sale of electric cars, to win over voters.

Labour has said it supports the use of unabated gas in its energy mix in line with the Climate Change Committee’s advice, which says it could produce around 2 per cent of electricity.

Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, said: “Of course we need to replace retiring gas-fired stations as part of a decarbonised power system, which will include carbon capture and hydrogen playing a limited back-up role in the system.”

Dr Doug Parr, policy director at Greenpeace UK, said the plan would “make Britain more dependent on the very fossil fuel that sent our bills rocketing and the planet’s temperature soaring”.

He added: “With the energy secretary and the prime minister banging on about building more gas plants, they could further put off green energy investors, which will surely damage our energy security, not improve it.”

The move was backed by the gas industry, which argues that it is necessary as a transition fuel to net zero.

Mark Horsley, the chief executive at Northern Gas Networks, said: “The Government is right to recognise the need for a secure energy system in the transition to net zero.

“Renewables are intermittent – [they] must be a major part of the net zero solution, but we need to accept that [they] can never power the UK alone.”