of Thanasis Gavou
A series of new rules to speed up the approval of major infrastructure projects were presented in Britain by the outgoing Johnson government’s Minister for Renewal Greg Clarke.
The main aim of the changes is to strengthen the country’s energy security, as in theory the process of approving plans for the operation of new nuclear power plants and offshore wind farms will now be faster.
The government’s move comes after her revelation intention of the most likely next Prime Minister Liz Truss to approve dozens of new drilling licenses in the North Sea for oil and gas extraction.
Mr Clarke said the changes to the process “will help deliver new infrastructure faster… particularly in a period of high inflation when things need to be done faster so that costs do not increase”.
Changes to the approval of infrastructure projects will be finalized as amendments to a relevant bill.
At the same time, however, there is still uncertainty about how soon plans to restart the UK’s largest natural gas storage facility will go ahead.
Energy company Centrica’s Rough facility sits below the surface of the North Sea and has not been used to store natural gas since 2017.
It has now received all the necessary approvals to restart operations, but the settlement between Centrica and the government is pending on the amount of the government’s financial contribution to the reactivation of the reservoir.
The tank holds an amount of natural gas capable of covering the country’s winter needs for about 10 days.
Also, possibly on Thursday, outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to make a speech on plans to build more nuclear power plants on British soil and on energy security in general.
Mr Johnson wants approval to build the Sizewell C nuclear power station before he leaves office next week. The Suffolk plant, costing at least £20bn, will be just the second nuclear power station in the country in a generation, following Hinckley Point C being built in Somerset.
Both nuclear plants will be a project of the state-owned French energy company EDF.
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