Policy Updates
Government’s smash and grab raid on renewable energy
The Government is trying to introduce a new tax that will exclusively target renewable energy producers, and will cause investment to become so unworkable that it will effectively end new windfarm developments in the UK.
The Chancellor plans to rush through a new tax in the Budget on 15th March that will raid earnings made by the UK’s vital renewable energy sector, while treating more favourably the huge profits made by oil and gas as a result of soaring energy costs.
The levy is a 45% charge on receipts above 7.5p/KWh generated from the production of wholesale electricity, which is being exclusively applied to ‘low carbon generators’. These include wind, solar, biomass and nuclear.
We understand the need for the Government to raise revenue to cover the support it has been providing households and businesses this winter. Energy companies should play their part.
However, the way this levy has been designed means it will cripple future investment in green energy in the UK – just when we need it most. It will introduce a marginal tax rate as high as 70% without the benefit of any investment allowance like the one that applies to the oil and gas industry.
In addition, coal, oil and gas electricity generators are out of the levy’s scope, despite earning supernormal profits. The Government is incentivising fossil fuel generators whilst decimating investment in the vital renewables sector which spreads investment and jobs right across the UK.
What you can do – CONTACT YOUR MP NOW
We are urging everyone who values the future of the UK’s renewables sector to contact their MP, asking them to write to the Chancellor. The Government must urgently reassess these plans – Community Windpower has provided alternative measures that would still raise revenue for the Government without hammering our transition to net zero.
The following text could be used as the basis for a message to your MP. Feel free to edit as you wish – the key point is to let them know how important it is that these changes are urgently made:
I am deeply concerned by the Chancellor’s plans to single out renewable energy for a massive tax grab in the upcoming Budget.
The Electricity Generator Levy unfairly targets the vital low-carbon sectors we need to fight climate change, while letting oil and gas producers off the hook as they continue to make huge profits.
I am asking you to please write to Jeremy Hunt’s office urgently to explain the damage this policy will do to the UK’s green prospects, and to ask him to make the changes necessary to prevent this before the Budget.
FIND YOUR MP HERE: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/
WRITE TO YOUR MP HERE: https://www.writetothem.com/
About Community Windpower
Community Windpower is one of Britain’s leading independent renewables businesses. As an onshore wind investor, it has over 1.5GW of windfarms built, under construction or in development across the UK.
It has been operating since 2001 to develop renewable energy sources to help combat the threat of climate change, and currently has eight wind farms in operation in Scotland, one under construction and another four in development.
To date it has invested over £500 million in developing onshore windfarms, with plans to increase this to £2 billion by 2025-26. These plans would be made completely unviable by the new Electricity Generator Levy, and other green industry leaders have written to the Chancellor urging him to change the measures to avert disaster.
