UK solar dreams risk being tainted by China’s influence
Rishi Sunak’s U-turn on onshore wind last week – lifting a de-facto moratorium on new turbines – might help turn around a chronic lack of investment that saw fewer of them installed in England last year than in Ukraine.
But that doesn’t mean the political rows are over, even as the Energy Bill passed its third reading last week.
Yet, the political row over onshore wind was not the only source of contention with the Energy Bill – the government’s blueprint for supply security and net zero – which passed its third reading in the House of Commons last week.
There was also a fresh chapter in the protracted back and forth over solar farms, with the prospect of new panels planted on Britain’s sunlit uplands a lightning rod for controversy around food security, community consent and even international relations with the UK scrambling to obtain vital minerals for projects from all around the world.
Alicia Kearns, Conservative MP for rural constituency Rutland and Melton, was at the centre of the debate, trying to push through multiple amendments to the legislation.
This included proposals to limit the scope of solar farms – so they could no longer be installed on 500-acre plus farms in a bid to shore up food security, reflecting that while one wing of the Tories pushes to lift planning restrictions, another looks to shackle projects in development hell.
Thankfully, this amendment was not successful, with concerns over crops mixing with renewable projects consistently overblown – with panels and farmland able to co-exist without any issues.
However, in keeping with her role as chair of the China Research Group and Foreign Affairs Select Committee, Kearns also pushed to block companies engaged in or benefitting from Uyghur forced labour from building large-scale projects in the UK, a much more substantive concern.
This amendment has also not been attached to the Energy Bill – which raises fresh worries over how robust the government’s stance on Chinese investment is.
China: Human rights concerns plague solar aims
The industry has been plagued with concerns over forced labour from internment camps in the Xinjiang province of China, where the country’s government has supressed over a million people since their construction six years ago.
This includes imprisoned labour for the unearthing and grounding up of polysilicon – the main raw material for photovoltaic panels used across the solar industry, with the region home to 35-40 per cent of supplies.
China dominates the solar industry, with eight of the world’s largest ten companies of Chinese origin, alongside estimates 40 per cent of the UK’s solar industry has been using panels built by the country’s companies.
This reflects its stranglehold across the wider industry, with China also holding a dominant role for mineral extraction and processing, meaning it has a huge influence on global supply chains for solar panels.
The domestic solar industry is alert to the problem and moral challenge – and has teamed up with EU allies to develop the Solar Stewardship Initiative, which looks to tackle the risk of tainted products with transparency requirements across supply chains – starting from December.
However, the industry does not think further action from government is needed, believing the private sector can regulate and act more swiftly than fresh legislation.
It also points to existing requirements in the Modern Slavery Act, which demands UK companies report on what they are doing to free their supply chains from slave labour.
But the problem is those rules place no duty on them to do anything other than to report the movements – with a recent letter signed by 15 human rights groups in the Coalition to End Forced Labour in the Uyghur Region warning that the UK risks becoming a dumping ground for products of forced labour to meet its target of boosting solar generation five-fold by 2035.
UK stance over China softens
The UK’s approach also contrasts with Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the US, which bars goods from the region due to the high risk of forced labour
Last month, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly defended continued business with China ahead of his first frontbench visit to the country in five years.
He insisted he raised human rights issues, but publicly emphasised the need for China as a partner is the global push to mitigate climate change.
Former Energy Secretary Grant Shapps meanwhile, defended “pure investments” from China in the stakes of nuclear projects – provided it didn’t involve data sharing or operational influence over the sites.
Morning Wire has also highlighted the role of Dajin Offshore Heavy Industry, a Chinese private company with the explicit aim of investing in overseas projects, in a Scottish wind farm that could power over a million homes.
Kearns’ unsuccessful attempt to toughen rules around Chinese investment in solar panels appears to expose the government’s softening approach.
It might even be possible the government is hoping to buy time, that until alliances with Western allies and a domestic industry revival for key minerals emerges, it will have to do business with China.
Such a realpolitik approach might make sense, but it’s time to be honest the government is honest about the moral challenges involved in securing a greener future.