Ed Miliband has approved the UK’s biggest solar farm, which will be built in a county where Reform UK’s anti-renewables agenda has won rising support.
The energy secretary on Tuesday gave the go-ahead for the Tillbridge solar farm to be developed near Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. Once built, it will generate enough electricity to power 300,000 UK homes.
The 700 megawatt project will be the largest ever built in the UK. It will be the ninth solar project with “nationally significant” status – meaning the decision to allow it is decided by central government – to be approved since Labour returned to power in July 2024.
In total, the Labour government has approved 17 nationally significant clean energy projects, enough to power the equivalent of more than 7.5m homes.
Labour has promised to make the UK a “clean energy superpower” by doubling its onshore windfarms, tripling its solar power and quadrupling its offshore wind capacity by the end of the decade to create a virtually carbon-free electricity system.
The government claims that reducing the use of gas-fired power plants to just 5% of the UK’s electricity needs by the end of the decade could cut energy bills. Labour campaigned on the promise that bills would fall by up to £300 a year by 2030.
However, support for Reform UK’s anti-net zero agenda has shown signs of growing in parts of the UK, including Lincolnshire, where many of the UK’s largest solar farms and major transmission cable projects are planned.
Miliband was forced to defend the government’s net zero policies in the House of Commons on Tuesday after MPs from the Conservative and Reform parties raised concerns over rising job losses within the UK’s fossil fuel industries and called for the UK to repeal the legislation that commits the UK to reaching net zero by 2050.
“The truth is our action makes other countries act,” he said. “The Climate Act passed [then] 60 other countries passed their own version of it. Net zero was signed into law in this country, and now 80% of the global GDP is covered by net zero.
“The net zero economy grew three times faster than the economy as a whole last year. This is the growth opportunity of the 21st century. We could let China take that opportunity, or let India take that opportunity, but I say we need that opportunity for Britain.”
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Later on Tuesday, Miliband told an industry conference in London that choosing to continue using gas-fired power plants, as proposed by the Conservative and Reform parties, would involve greater costs and leave the UK exposed to volatility in the UK gas market.
“To listen to some people talk, you would think there was a free pass to just carry on using unlimited gas from existing stations for the next few decades, but that is simply not the case,” he told delegates at the Energy UK conference.
“Now of course, people are entitled to advocate for more fossil fuels and less or even no more renewables as part of this mix. But here is the reality: they would leave us more exposed because we don’t control the price.
“They are more expensive to build and operate. They would leave us losing out in the global race for the jobs, investment and industries of the future. And they would drive a coach and horses through our efforts to tackle the climate crisis,” he said.
