We’ve been waiting for the UK’s Industrial Strategy for a while. It’s a plan for the next 10 years, which the government says will reduce electricity bills by up to 25% for 7,000 businesses. It should also speed up connections to the grid and increase support for energy-intensive businesses like steel, aerospace and glass.
Overall, the Strategy should boost industrial growth by reducing energy costs, developing skills and providing investment for innovations.
Here are some of the promises.
Reduced levies. From 2027, eligible manufacturers could stop paying some levies such as Feed-in Tariffs. An ‘Industry Supercharger’ scheme could reduce costs even further for around 500 businesses that rely heavily on energy. They could receive up to 90% discounts on their energy charges.
The government says taxpayers won’t pay for the Strategy and household energy bills won’t increase. Instead, funding will come from energy system reforms and the expected growth in the country’s industries.
Faster grid connections. The Strategy promises a new ‘Connections Accelerator’ service to simplify access to the energy grid for new industrial projects. This should also help businesses expand and modernise their operations without long delays. More planners could also help to reduce project delays to speed up construction for factories and other industrial facilities.
Industrial investment. Priority sectors such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, digital technologies, creative industries and life sciences should benefit from £1billion investment.
In preparation for industrial growth the government says it will also spend £1.2billion annually on skills by 2028/29. The plan is to create over a million skilled jobs over the next decade.
Research. Funding for research and development should increase to £22.6billion annually by 2030. There’s also extra funding for artificial intelligence (AI) development, quantum computing and medical and sustainable food research.
What could affect the Industrial Strategy?
Grid connection delays currently cause problems and create bottlenecks that affect progress. We urgently need government action to overcome this problem.
Workforce training is another key requirement to deliver new, cleaner energy. Clear career paths will help attract people to key roles in the industrial sector.
Already defined as part of the country’s infrastructure, data centre development is essential to deliver advances in AI. However, this will also create large extra energy demands.
Let’s see what happens next.
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