UK Energy Secretary Signals China Pivot

UK’s energy secretary is reportedly scheduled to travel to China next month in a bid to forge a closer relationship with the country, despite it being seen by previous governments in London as a threat to national security.

The report comes from Reuters, which spoke to unnamed sources close to Ed Miliband, who said the top energy member of the UK cabinet will discuss alternative energy sources in China. What he will not discuss, per the sources, is nuclear energy.

The UK’s Labour government is looking to mend fences with China after the last series of Conservative cabinets all demonstrated mistrust and suspicion to Beijing, in sync with the EU and the United States. However, the Starmer government has signaled it was willing to change this, diverging from the EU/U.S. course of import tariffs and accusations of national security attacks on the part of the Chinese.

In the energy sector, Chinese equipment and components are crucial for the Starmer government’s transition efforts as the country is the largest producer of things such as solar panels, wind turbines, and inverters. It is also the lowest-cost producer, ironically thanks to the amount of coal-powered generation Chinese manufacturers use to make the transition components.

The UK has some of the most ambitious transition goals in the world, aiming to generate as much as 95% of its electricity from non-hydrocarbon sources. As part of efforts to achieve this, the government has committed to doubling onshore wind energy by 2030, quadrupling offshore wind, and trebling solar power by the end of the decade.

To do this, the Starmer government would need to speed up the pace of growth in wind and solar capacity considerably. In offshore wind alone, the government would need to approve more offshore capacity in the next two annual renewable energy auctions, than it has approved in the last six auctions, the country’s grid operator warned last year.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

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