UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: Ruth Byrne KC, Andrea Stauber and Erin Vandzura, King & Spalding International LLP
Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Secu- rity and Net Zero, and Matthieu Hue, CEO of EDF Renewables ‒ to accelerate deployment of the variable renewable energy generation technol- ogy by 2030. Finally, it will also be necessary for the UK’s electricity grid to keep up. Building sub- stations and transformers along the east coast is imperative, according to The Economist, and Chris Skidmore’s Net Zero Review emphasised the importance of a framework and delivery plan for the critical networks. CCUS Given its proximity to the North Sea, the UK is well-placed to make use of CCUS technology for sub-seabed storage. There are currently no com- mercial applications of CCUS in the UK but, as previously mentioned, Powering Up Britain set a target of capturing and storing 20–30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2030 and more than 50 million tonnes per year by 2035. In a 2019 report, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) explained that CCUS technology was “a necessity not an option” for the UK. In October 2021, the Department for BEIS selected the East Coast Cluster (a collaboration between Northern Endurance Partnership, Net Zero Teesside and Zero Carbon Humber) as a “Track-1” cluster, thereby putting it on course for deployment by the mid-2020s. In May 2022, the North Sea Transition Authority awarded BP and Equinor two carbon storage licences for the East Coast Cluster. The licences, which are for an appraisal term of eight years, relate to stor- age sites located approximately 1,400 metres beneath the seabed in the southern North Sea. In December 2024, the government announced that the first two projects in the East Coast Clus- ter had reached financial close and would begin construction in mid-2025.
In October 2024, Prime Minister Keir Starmer confirmed funding for two CCUS sites in Tees- side and Merseyside and announced the pro- visions of up to GBP21.7 billion of funding for CCUS over the next 25 years. One of the key criticisms is that CCUS is a new technology that has yet to be proven at scale. The former UK government’s investment of GBP20 billion has therefore been described by the Financial Times as a “very large bet”. Scien- tists and environmentalists are also concerned that CCUS will be used to prolong oil and gas development in the North Sea. However, pro- ponents of CCUS argue that CCUS is the only option that enables deep decarbonisation for industries such as steel, cement, chemical refin- ing, glass and ceramics – all of which emit CO2 as part of the production process. Nuclear In the late 1990s, nuclear power generated approximately 25% of the UK’s electricity. Since then, several plants have been permanently shut down and nuclear currently provides only around 15% of the UK’s electricity. In December 2024, the UK government pub- lished its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which included a commitment to nuclear, including the lifetimes of existing nuclear projects where pos- sible and stated that nuclear power “would play a key role in achieving Clean Power 2030”. It set out several actions to support nuclear energy generation, such as: • working with EDF to support the delivery of a nuclear plant currently under construction, Hinkley Point C (expected to come online between 2029 and 2031); and
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