Widely dispersed wind farms and solar panels are harder to target than fossil fuel power stations, Michael Shanks says
Renewable energy will boost the UK’s national security and make the country more resilient against potential aggression or sabotage, the government’s energy minister has said.
Michael Shanks said widely dispersed wind farms and solar panels were much harder to target than large-scale fossil fuel power stations. They are also not vulnerable to supply shocks, such as the current oil crisis caused by the US-Israel war on Iran and the soaring gas prices that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“We are dealing with a far more complex threat landscape than we’ve ever dealt with before. That’s true in the UK, it’s true across Europe,” Shanks said. “Building a decentralised power system with a whole series of assets is less of a risk of physical attack than large-scale power stations. Moving towards clean power is the best way to deliver our energy security in an increasingly uncertain world.”
The Conservatives and Reform UK have pushed for more drilling in the North Sea, rather than renewables. But those arguments received a heavy blow last week when the Guardian revealed that Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency and the world’s leading energy economist, advised against new exploration licences on a commercial basis and said potential new fields already within the licensing system, such as Rosebank and Jackdaw, would make little difference to the UK’s energy security or energy prices.
