The National Wealth Fund (NWF) has unveiled a plan it says could boost £100 billion of UK investment in clean energy.
The new strategic plan will, among other things, prioritize battery production and energy storage, electricity grids and carbon capture projects, to deploy the Fund’s remaining £19.4 billion of capital over the next five years.
The NWF – an operationally independent arm of the Treasury – said it expects the greatest impact in ten key sectors: ports and supply chains, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, battery and EV production, steel, electricity networks, energy storage, nuclear energy, transport infrastructure and ‘place-based regeneration’.
Of this, it said it would aim to spend £5.8 billion on ports and supply chains, carbon capture, hydrogen, battery and EV production and steel by 2030-31. The NWF also outlined fifteen other sectors for strategic investments, including solar, critical minerals, offshore wind and AI.
The £100 billion investment figure the NWF has forecast includes core capital commitments and the commitment to the Sizewell C nuclear power station, in addition to private financing that it expects to mobilize over the next five years. In addition to funding figures, the Fund also expects to create and support “more than 200,000 jobs” across the economy.
Oliver Holbourn, CEO of the National Wealth Fund, said: “This is an exciting new chapter for the National Wealth Fund as we look to unlock Britain’s future. We will go further and faster to pump more than £100 billion into the economy, fully deploying our capital over the next five years to help drive economic growth.”
The NWF’s approach to renewables and network investments will focus on debt and guarantee financing opportunities. In the solar sector, NWF’s investments will focus on large-scale projects and corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs), which it says will be shaped by the government. Solar road map and Contracts for Difference (CfD) schemes.
For energy storage, the NWF plan says it will consider certain equity investments to support the shortlisted long-term energy storage. (LDES) projects through the Cap and Floor scheme.
Since its inception, the NWF has made significant investments in clean energy in the UK. In August it was part of a consortium that committed £500 million to a 300MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) portfolio and earlier last year it committed to it £600m to help with electricity grid upgrades. This was provided to the Spanish energy giant Iberdrola, owner of grid operator ScottishPower.
This new plan marks a step change in NWF’s clean energy investments compared to these previous plans.
“Clean energy isn’t just about energy sovereignty; it’s about bringing back the good industrial jobs that our country has been denied for too long,” said Energy Minister Ed Miliband. “Thanks to the certainty of the government’s superpower mission in clean energy and such public investments, the industry is responding record investment – which means better jobs for people across our country.”
