Ukraine has completed more onshore wind turbines than England since it was occupied by Russian soldiers – despite the UK’s government’s promise to relax restrictions on onshore wind farms.
Only two onshore wind turbines have been installed in England since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, generating 1 megawatt (MW) of electricity in the Staffordshire village of Keele.
Ukraine’s Tyligulska wind power plant, meanwhile, the first to be built in a conflict zone, has begun generating enough clean electricity to power around 200,000 homes just 60 miles from the frontline in the southern region of Mykolaiv, with 19 turbines providing an installed capacity of 114 MW.
Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change secretary, said: “This extraordinary revelation is a terrible indictment of Rishi Sunak and his staggering failure to end the onshore wind ban.
“Even governments fighting for their very survival can get on and build the clean energy infrastructure needed to tackle the cost of living crisis, the energy security crisis, and the climate crisis with more urgency than the Tories can muster.”
No 10 promised last year to dismantle an effective ban on onshore wind farms in England, which was put in place in 2015 by tightening planning restrictions in the National Planning Policy Framework. However, the government is yet to make any changes and campaigners believe that a rebellion of backbench Tory MPs threatens to pile pressure on ministers to make only modest tweaks to the framework, which would continue to hold back the rollout of English wind farms.
The ban on onshore wind, which is the cheapest source of electricity, is estimated to have cost UK billpayers £800m over the past winter when millions were plunged into fuel poverty for the first time due to rising global energy market prices, according to analysts at the Energy and Climate Change Intelligence Unit (ECIU).
British households face energy bills that are expected to remain above pre-pandemic levels until the end of the decade after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine triggered a surge in global energy markets last year. Although global energy market prices have retreated from record highs they are likely to remain far higher than usual while European countries seek alternative energy sources to help replace Russia’s gas exports.
Miliband said the Conservatives’ “absurd ban on onshore wind” had cost every family in Britain £180 and left the energy system “dependent on fossil fuel dictators like Putin”.
Sam Richards, the founder and campaign director of Britain Remade, which campaigns for green economic growth, said: “It’s simply mind-boggling that Ukraine, while it fights for its survival, has built more onshore wind capacity than England.
“The government should start by dropping its ban on new onshore wind farms in England – at the stroke of a pen unlocking the cheapest source of energy available.”
The Labour party has put forward plans to end the onshore wind ban and make Britain “a clean energy superpower” by 2030. Part of its plan includes setting up publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, to produce “cheap, clean power in Britain, for Britain”.
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Ukraine’s largest private energy investor, DTEK, said its Tyligulska wind farm is on track to become the largest onshore wind farm in eastern Europe once complete.
Maxim Timchenko, DTEK’s chief executive, said the wind farm was “a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian attempts to freeze Ukraine into submission” which would help to “build Ukraine back greener and cleaner and become a key partner in Europe’s energy future”.
In January, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer told the World Economic Forum in Davos that there would be no investment in new oil and gas fields in Britain under a Labour government.
Starmer is expected to set out is energy plans next month, including a pledge to ban all new North Sea oil and gas licences, the Sunday Times reported.