Farms: Renewable Energy

Question

The Net Zero Strategy sets out a clear vision for a sustained increase in deployment of renewable generation capacity in the 2020s and beyond. This also brings forward the Government's goal of ensuring a fully decarbonised power system by 15 years, to 2035. The British Energy Security Strategy set out a series of bold commitments to support and accelerate this as part of a decisive shift away from expensive fossil fuels.

The current allocation round of the Contracts for Difference is the Government's main mechanism for encouraging large-scale renewable generation, such as solar, in Great Britain. Overall, this will provide £285 million a year to eligible projects. The Government recently announced that further scheme allocation rounds will run annually from 2023.

On farm, the Farming Investment Fund, which launched in November 2022, seeks to encourage farmers in the use of renewable energy as part of its large grants offering (the Transformation Fund). When the first of the farm productivity grants opened it was oversubscribed so we trebled the budget in that fund so that we could support over 4000 farmers nationally with their investment plans. The Government intends to launch future rounds of the scheme, where there will be further opportunities to enhance and reward environmental sustainability measures taken by farmers.

Defra is also exploring renewable energy sources such as capturing methane on farm for use as biogas and green fuels for farm machinery, supporting companies and further research in pioneering innovative new technologies

We will continue supporting the effective use of land by encouraging large scale projects to locate on previously developed, or lower value land, where possible. We will also support solar that is co-located with other functions (for example, agriculture, onshore wind generation, or storage) to maximise the efficiency of land use.