The answer, according to Ed Miliband in an infamously toe-curling rendition of the Bob Dylan song, is blowing in the wind. But no longer, it seems, if you are on the board of SSE. The energy company, which was one of the first UK electricity companies to commit in a big way to renewable energy, has just pulled £3 billion worth of investment in renewables, citing the ‘changing macroeconomic environment’ and delays in the planning system. For that read that the projects it had intended to build have become economically unviable now that we no longer have near-zero interest rates, and that the national grid is struggling to absorb so much intermittent green energy.
To put that figure into context, SSE is still planning to invest £17.5 billion in renewables and associated transmission projects over the five years to 2027. Nevertheless, it still represents a significant pull-back on the Net Zero Acceleration Programme that it announced in November 2021.
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