By Ritesh Gupta

Energy Secretary Ed Davey highlighted that the coalition government has made significant progress against the energy investment challenge inherited in 2010 where energy projects accounted for nearly 60% of the UK National Infrastructure Plan (£218bn out of the £377bn).

Davey also mentioned that as per the department’s analysis a need for up to £110bn of electricity infrastructure investment between 2013 and 2020 has been identified. And as per the latest analysis, the £110bn electricity investment target now stands at up to £100bn through to 2020.

According to the report, since 2010 over £30bn has been invested in electricity generation principally in renewable technologies.

A major development in the renewables sector has been emergence of new supply chain jobs. Citing an example, the report says Siemens and ABP were recently chose to invest £310m to build two new factories in Hull, to make turbine blades and assemble offshore wind turbines.

Construction is to start later this year, and will finish in 2016. Construction at both sites will support at least 300 jobs and once operational, it is expected they will support 1,000 jobs.

Also, since 2009, secondary investment into UK electricity generation has increased – at £2.6bn, 2013 was a record year. For instance, the Green Investment Bank recently confirmed its investment of £461m in the Westermost Rough and Gwynt y Môr offshore wind projects. This would allow Dong Energy and RWE Innogy to recycle their investment capital into the next wave of investment projects.