In October, the Prime Minister announced a new investment of £160 million to support offshore wind. This funding will support major new port side manufacturing hubs, so that the UK can host the factories making the next generation of offshore wind equipment. The Government also confirmed a boost to its previous target to deliver up to 30GW of offshore wind to delivering 40GW by 2030. These plans will help us build back better and build back greener by making the UK the world leader in clean wind energy – creating 60,000 jobs, reducing carbon emissions and boosting exports. Nearly 400,000 people are working in the low-carbon economy and the Government is committed to creating thousands of highly skilled, well paid jobs up and down the country.
Coal is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel and is responsible for harmful air pollution. The consensus is that unabated coal is not consistent with meeting our decarbonisation objectives. I am pleased that the Government has confirmed its commitment to end unabated coal power generation from 2025. Coal power stations will need to close by 1 October 2025 at the latest unless they invest to reduce their emissions significantly, and the Prime Minister has announced that the Government will consult on bringing forward the coal closure date to 1 October 2024.
Included in the Prime Minister’s ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution is carbon capture technology. With an extra £200 million investment, the UK will become a world-leader in technology to capture and store harmful emissions away from the atmosphere, with a target to remove 10MT of carbon dioxide by 2030, equivalent to all emissions of the industrial Humber today. This investment will help to support up to 50,000 jobs in areas with heavy industry and brings the total funding to £1 billion. The funding will be used to create two carbon capture clusters by the mid-2020s, with a further two planned by 2030, in areas such as the Humber, Teesside, Merseyside, Grangemouth and Port Talbot.
I welcome that the Prime Minister included nuclear in his Ten Point Plan to achieve net zero and eradicated the UK's contribution to climate change. The Government will support the next generation of nuclear power plants to generate low carbon electricity. £525 million is being invested to help develop large and smaller-scale nuclear plants, and research and develop new advanced modular reactors. I am encouraged that this could create 10,000 green jobs.
I am pleased that the Government is investing in developing hydrogen as a strategic decarbonised energy carrier, alongside exploration in electricity and other decarbonised gases. Up to £121 million is being invested between 2015 and 2021 in hydrogen innovation, supporting the application of new low-carbon hydrogen technologies across the value chain. This investment will enable projects to explore and develop the potential of low carbon hydrogen. This includes production, storage and end use in heat, industry and transport.
The Prime Minister's ten-point plan included £500 million investment in hydrogen to trial homes using hydrogen for heating and cooking. I am encouraged that the Government aims to develop a hydrogen neighbourhood in 2023, with plans for a full hydrogen town before the end of the decade. £240 million of this funding will go into new hydrogen production facilities. The Government is working with industry and aiming to generate 5GW of low carbon hydrogen production capacity by 2030 for industry, transport, power and homes. Ministers have announced that the UK's hydrogen strategy will be published early in 2021 and I look forward to following any developments closely.
In addition, with the Government’s support, £92 billion has been invested by businesses in clean energy since 2010 and renewables generated a record 36.9 per cent of the UK’s electricity in 2019, up from 6.1% in 2010.
