Configuración de requisitos previos

As highlighted in Chapter 3, the fragmented devolution of policy areas linked to Wales’s potential economic development and continued peripheralization has been a source of continuing tensions between the UK and Welsh governments. However, policy devolution to Wales has gradually increased, most notably with the Wales Act (2017) (active from April 2019). Within the Act, Wales’s energy policy remit was extended to include the licencing and granting of consent for onshore oil and gas projects; all onshore wind projects; renewable energy projects under 350 MW that are developed in the Wales inshore and offshore regions; and the promotion of energy efficiency. However, despite

147 enjoying greater power over its energy policy, limitations remain. As one interviewee pointed out, even with enhanced powers, there are limits to what the Welsh Government can approve and how much it can afford to fund itself without UK Government assistance:

We didn’t have much control at all, but with the new Act now its 350MW and below we will have some control over, but above that will still go to the UK government so they can decide things. We can put our thoughts forward, but in the end, they decide. So again, it’s a bit restrictive. So, in a lot of things that people want to do, we will not do it unless UK government helps (Welsh Government interview 3).

This is reflected in the reliance on economic incentives for renewable energy production in Wales being governed by UK government. For example, the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) and Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) are UK-wide renewable energy subsidies aimed at encouraging the development of low-carbon energy production. The subsidies make payments to renewable energy producers (domestic, public or commercial) for energy exported to the National Grid (FIT only) in addition to payments for energy produced even if consumed by the producer (FIT and RHI)²⁶. Since 2015 the UK Government has substantially reduced FIT due to unexpected high level of take-up. Critique of this decision in the media and by low-carbon advocates and link to the recent decline in new renewable energy production developments in the UK (see Figure 6.1) was reflected by interviewees:

Feed-in-tariffs were designed to produce stability and certainness in the market, and they never did, they just changed and changed and changed, cut, cut, cut, so actually the one thing they were supposed to produce, which was certainty in long-term decision making, didn’t happen (Expert interview 8).

26 See Chapter 3, page 47 for more detailed explanation of FIT and RHI

148 Figure 6.1. Renewable electricity production in the UK (2000-2017) ²⁷

Source: DUKES (2018, p.160)

Eighteen months ago George Osborne, Amber Rudd cut the subsidies to the renewable sector, which has devastated that sector in Wales, well in the UK.

Which means there’s far more risk[..]. Without that subsidy now, a lot of them are just no longer viable. A lot of would have been pumping money by now out of the rivers and off the hills into those communities, they just haven’t happened. And what’s happened as well alongside that is the zillions of small jobs, across Wales, like PV installers, they’ve just been hit. I think the figure is something like 18,000 jobs have gone across the UK, local electricians and builders and installation companies as a result (Business interview 2).

However, Wales retains a focus on renewable low-carbon energy and views transition as a means of diversifying and growing its economy. There is the ambition “to create a sustainable, low-carbon economy for Wales” and to be a world leader in low-carbon renewable energy production (Welsh Government 2017c). These misaligned priorities between the UK and Wales can cause further friction in energy policy. Welsh ambitions for the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon (SBTL) in contrast with UK ambition for Wylfa Newydd nuclear development²⁸, may be such examples of this. While this represents a conflict between the UK and Welsh Governments, others relate to it at a sub-regional

27 Note the increase in onshore wind in 2017, this spike has largely been attributed to a ‘rush’ to complete renewable energy developments before the FIT decrease in 2015.

28 See Chapter 4 for further discussion of Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon and Wylfa Newydd

149 scale, where other more controversial renewable energy projects are proposed in peripheries within Wales by the Welsh Government:

I think the Welsh Government has certainly got much more of a green growth agenda than Westminster, I think Westminster has got an appalling record over the past five years and I can only see it getting worse. I think the big issue is the fact that Westminster still controls major energy projects, so things like the Tidal Lagoon being in the hands of Westminster, I can’t really see any justification for that now, I think there’s a big issue there (Expert interview 1).

[The Tidal Lagoon is] such an obvious winner, both from the point of development of industry and being at the forefront of technology and from the energy point of view. I just can’t understand why we can’t get a go-ahead on things like that, instead we have a suggestion that Powys has got to have these wind turbines (Community group interview 6).

While there is acknowledgement that Wales can only do so much with limited powers, there was a level of disappointment felt that Wales missed opportunities when they arose.

This was raised mainly in expert interviews discussing renewable energy production, where planning processes had until recently created a barrier for larger scale developments (for example 1 Megawatt (MW) and above), and that Welsh institutions had not embraced the FIT while it was still available. As per Section 3.2, aside from Northern Ireland, Wales has the lowest number of renewable energy sites, installed capacity and production (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy [BEIS]

2018e). This was attributed by interviewees to a lack of ambition, foresight and leadership in addition to risk aversion:

We’re the worst statistically, we’re the worst of the four home-nations of the UK on per-capita basis and that’s given the fact that we have a very good resource. We should be second behind Scotland because their resource is better. A lot of the reason for that is legacy, we [had] a crap planning system, that was a problem dealt with in the Planning Act… so the planning side in Wales is now more streamlined and has a clearer purpose, and that happened at exactly the same time as all the subsidies vanished. So, you’ve got a position

150 where it’s easier to develop projects in Wales than any other part of the UK, but there’s no money there (Expert interview 6).

They didn’t see the opportunity when the FIT was there. Scotland saw the opportunity, that’s why they’re way ahead. They knew they could get loads of money in investment into Scotland. Wales for whatever reason is far behind and just didn’t see that vision to take that opportunity, and I think they still don’t see that opportunity. That actually, if a significant portion was locally owned it could have a significant impact on local economies in Wales. They just don’t see it (Expert interview 3).

Risk aversion was attributed by one expert interviewee as “branch office mentality”, where the Welsh Government are perceived to lack confidence due to Wales’s centuries of being politically dominated from England:

[Welsh Government have] not got that flexibility, it’s all a bit risk adverse.

It’s all still a bit of a problem, although things have changed a bit. Maybe that’s the way in Wales as well – post-colonialism takes a while to shake off, doesn’t it? (Expert interview 9).

Overall, energy ambition in Wales is at odds with UK-national scale plans. At the time of this research, contemporary examples provided by interviewees were of Welsh plans for SBTL and the perceived purposeful delay in decision making by UK Government, finally ending in disapproval. However, Wales’s subsidiary energy policy position is evident also in its reliance on UK level low-carbon subsidies. Additionally, Wales’s energy market and network are regulated and managed by UK-wide organisations, Ofgem and National Grid, this national-centric governance also poses issues for peripheries. For example, as will be discussed in further detail in Section 7.4 rural areas of Wales have sparser mains energy networks than urban and pay more for mains electricity.

Frustration of low-carbon energy ambition was also noted to occur due to Welsh Government itself, whereby fast and widespread uptake of FIT was not carried out. Nor was it enabled via Welsh Government leadership or changes to planning policy for other actors in Wales to take advantage of. This slow response and perceived lack of initiative

151 by Welsh Government was attributed to risk aversion that prevented action being taken in Wales before UK Government initiation.