Wind and solar power: How to turn manifesto promises into tangible results
What can the government learn from the coalition's development of the UK’s offshore wind sector?

Labour’s manifesto contained more than 350 pledges of varying scale and ambition. Now in office its task is to turn these promises into workable policies. In this series looking at how the government can deliver on its manifesto pledges by drawing on lessons from the past, the IfG policy making team look at the development of the offshore wind sector.
Labour’s manifesto made bold promises on energy and climate, including the core mission of delivering ‘clean power’ by 2030. This includes a commitment to double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030.
Past governments have delivered major energy infrastructure projects, but this government needs to move much faster
Starting in the 1950s, the government built some 4,000 miles of transmission lines in 12 years to create the electricity ‘supergrid’. Then, between 1967 and 1977, the UK converted 13.5 million buildings and 40 million gas appliances from ‘town gas’ (made from coal or oil) to ‘natural gas’. And during the 1990s, the UK built 40 new gas power stations as part of the ‘dash for gas’ as the country moved away from coal as a primary power source. But these major programmes all took around a decade to deliver, even when the governments of the day acted in a coordinated and focused way.
This government has set itself a much bigger task. Scaling up various renewable energy sources in the space of just five years will require it to deploy new infrastructure at historic rates. And it will need to deliver not just the renewable energy itself but the systems to store, connect and use it, from large-scale batteries to new power lines. Doing so will require enough people and materials – at the right places and times – without substantially increasing current energy prices to meet Labour’s other manifesto promises, notably to reduce household bills.
The coalition’s offshore wind success shows the benefits of a clear mandate
The 2010 coalition government’s innovative ‘contracts for difference’ (CfD) price support programme – through which companies could secure long-term price agreements, or ‘strike prices’, for future renewable energy outputs – opened up low-cost capital for the offshore wind industry and stimulated rapid technological innovation, triggering a major boom in offshore wind capacity while reducing prices.
Within government, a clear mandate from the top empowered ministers to deliver bold reforms. Supported by existing legal commitments to boost the UK’s renewable energy capacity, the coalition’s ‘Programme for government’, negotiated between Nick Clegg and David Cameron, gave the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) a strong mandate with a clear, five-year agenda.
Cameron set officials two “absolute, principal objectives” for electricity market reform: reducing the capital costs for renewable projects and building a turbine blade factory. Officials have since told the Institute that this “laser focus” brought a coordinated, cross-government approach that maintained direction. As one of the Liberal Democrats’ five cabinet posts, Nick Clegg saw energy policy as a priority, further protecting it from political upheaval.
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Metcalfe S and Sasse T, The development of the UK’s offshore wind sector, 2010-2016, Institute for Government, 2023, https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-10/Case-study-offshore-wind-2010-2016.pdf
Departmental expertise and effective central coordination also sped up delivery
In DECC, ministers and officials focused time and political capital on electricity market reform. Having built up expertise and networks under the previous government, officials made rapid progress on policy design and could stress-test proposals with stakeholders with confidence.
The coalition ‘Quad’ – Cameron, Clegg, and George Osborne and Danny Alexander – was an effective decision-making body, resolving Treasury-DECC disagreements and maintaining momentum, supported by expert civil servants like former cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood.
But while the coalition achieved its major two aims, it failed to plan for the rapid uptick in demand – both for grid infrastructure and offshore wind supply chains brought on by the CfD agreements. These remain major challenges for the Starmer government as it works towards its own green energy target.
The government may find working on multiple fronts simultaneously most challenging
The Clean Power mission is one of Starmer’s six ‘milestones’ for this parliamentary term, chosen to provide industry with the long-term certainty it needs to invest. As the development of the offshore wind sector showed, a strong lead department or agency with the relevant capacity and expertise to actively coordinate across central government, local government and the private sector is also critical.
Labour inherited a standalone energy department, set up by Sunak in 2023, and has appointed Ed Miliband, a former energy secretary, to lead it. Alongside this, ministers have brought in well-respected external experts to support delivery, such as Chris Stark, former chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, to head the new ‘Mission Control’.
However, unlike with offshore wind in the 2010s, the department and industry are trying to deliver several major projects at once – from scaling up renewables to reforming the energy market – which will make it more difficult to focus and prioritise. So far, the government has put more money into the most recent CfD auction and announced reforms to planning and grid connection processes: these will be undoubtedly beneficial, but it is not clear whether they will speed up delivery enough to hit 2030 targets.
Central coordination and engagement with industry will now be key
Mechanisms to co-ordinate action across government and conflict resolution – as in the 2010s – are crucial. Working closely with the Treasury to develop a coherent approach to new renewables without raising consumer bills will be a key test for this government. The government should use the ‘mission control’ team to proactively monitor delivery across multiple fronts and spot risks and opportunities as they arise.
It must also prepare workable plans for supply chains and infrastructure to avoid the blockages of the 2010s and define its role in boosting skills and coordinating supply chains. Early, regular engagement with the private sector is vital. The government needs to make sure it is clear about what is feasible given capacity in the sector – for instance by consulting long-standing partners like the Offshore Wind Industry Council – while also corroborating this through independent sources.
Although the government has implied a ‘test, learn and iterate’ approach should be more accepted in Whitehall, five years does not leave a lot of time to correct mistakes; if the government is going to fulfil its commitment to double onshore wind, triple solar power and quadruple offshore wind by 2030, it may find it has to get this right the first time.
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- Labour
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