Change in the air for UK power

The removal of restrictions on onshore wind will reduce costs and emissions. It may even tempt the majors to diversify into the sector

The glaring omission from the UK’s renewable power success story has been the ability of onshore wind—almost certainly the cheapest form of renewable energy—to compete on a level playing field for supply contracts. That all changed in March, and the sector looks set for a renaissance. Onshore wind had been a booming sector until the UK’s right-leaning Conservative party won a parliamentary majority in a 2015 poll, freeing them from a coalition with the centre-left Liberal Democrats. That allowed the Conservatives to pursue a not-in-my-backyard agenda favoured by the party’s rural supporters. Planning applications were effectively subject to veto by local campaign groups and onshore wind was