The latest Public Attitudes Tracker from the UK Department of Energy Security and Net Zero says UK public support for renewables is down from 87% in 2021 to 80% now, with opposition rising from 1 to 4%, with solar and wind loosing some support. Solar is at 86%, down from 88% last year, offshore wind is 80%, down from 83%, on shore wind is 73%, down from 77%. Only 37% say they’d be happy with an onshore wind farm nearby, down from 43%, while just 47% support local solar farms, down from 53%, with local opposition at 14%, up from 9%. Crucially, only 69% believe the renewables industry delivers economic benefits to the UK, down from 74%.
You might see that as a Farage effect, given that his Reform party is strongly anti-renewables and very critical of the Labour governments Net Zero policy- a political view now it seems shared by the Conservative party. There does seem to have been more media coverage of views like this, with local opposition to solar farm projects being especially newsworthy. For its part, to back up its commitment to deliver 45-47 GW of solar by 2030, the government has pledged to see off what it portrays as ‘infrastructure blockers’ and has been revising the planning system. So, there could be more controversies. But the government seems keen to press ahead: since July, it says it has ‘taken action to deploy the technology at scale, approving nearly 3 GW of nationally significant solar - more than in the last 14 years combined’.
Solar farms may be a bone of some contention in some locations, although the Solar Lobby seems convinced that the problems are relatively minor and indeed that support for solar is actually rising. New research commissioned by Solar Energy UK has claimed that 77% of the UK public supports solar development in their local area. Solar Power Portal noted that the survey, conducted by Copper Consultancy, ‘explores attitudes towards solar PV power plants, revealing that since 2023, there has been a 4% increase in backing for solar PV development’, with there being ‘a distinct sway of opinion towards support for solar energy’. A total of 68% of those surveyed evidently said their opinion of solar energy had changed in the last 12 months, with 55% becoming more supportive of the industry and 13% becoming more opposed. So some divergent survey results, with, on the ground, a report from MSC, the Microgeneration Support Scheme, saying that home solar installation levels were 22% higher in the first half of 2025 than in the first half of 2024, reaching their highest rate since 2015.
Historically, on land wind was subject to some local opposition, indeed more so than solar farms, and the new DESNZ data suggests that this is still the case, even if it’s still relatively well supported overall, at 73%. But, having lifted a de-facto ban on land based wind projects in England imposed by David Cameron’s Government in 2016, the Labour government is now pushing ahead with a 40-step plan to accelerate delivery of new onshore wind farms. It’s looking to have at least 27GW of onshore wind by 2030 and maybe 29GW. To smooth things on, it has talked of offering reduced power bills for people near to new pylon lines. It has also been changing the planning system, for example by bringing large onshore wind projects back into the Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) regime in England, in line with other energy infrastructure. That means the government would have the final say on approving wind farm projects larger than 100 MW, rather than local councils, although there will still be local consultation.
It will be interesting to see how and if these and other policy changes will influence the data in next public attitudes survey. Some of the changes will take a while to have an impact. For example, the government has announced that all new build homes will have solar panels by default to help bring down bills for families, through the Future Homes Standard. Renters and those living in apartments should also soon enjoy the benefits of solar as the government sets out the steps required to make portable ‘plug-in’ balcony solar available in the UK.
Given this sort of thing, some look to solar booming, with increased output as capacity expands, with some suggesting it might even reach 90GW by 2035. Meantime, offshore wind is still popular, with a longer-term theoretical potential put at up to 120GW and fewer constraints than for on shore wind or solar - although there are some, for example due to wake effects, as I explored in my last post. There is also tidal and wave power, still getting 81% of public support in the tracker, with, as I noted in an earlier post, several tens of GW potential. Biomass energy, by contrast, has always been a bit less popular (only 69% support it in the tracker) and, of late, there has been reduction in financial and policy support for large-scale wood chip combustion, but there is still a large potential for using farm and domestic waste for biogas production.
Overall then the UK is very well placed for most renewables, and even if there can be some local objections, they are mostly from a small minority, a few percent. Interestingly the DESNZ tracker found that opposition to the construction of new nuclear power stations was 37% in Spring 2025, down from 41% in Spring 2024. Support remained stable at 22%. The primary reasons for opposition were said to be fear over safety and security (74%), and the disposal of radioactive nuclear waste (69%). The survey was carried out before the recent proposal for mass deployment of Small Modular Reactors around the county. For example, around 21 SMR sites have been proposed for the Midlands. It will be interesting to see how that, and the commitment to build a new large plant at Sizewell, goes down in the next opinion tracker…
There’s certainly been quite a lot of pro-nuclear media coverage of late, even in the Guardian. Some say support for nuclear is growing due to concerns about renewables and about climate change. Well this Springs tracker doesn’t offer much in the way of corroboration for that. Yes, renewables have lost a few percentage points and opposition to nuclear is down slightly, but the tracker says that concern about climate change are also down slightly, declining from 80% in Winter 2024 to 77% in Spring 2025. But maybe that’s also due to a Farage effect! Who knows! But it’s interesting that 88% of Europeans now back EU measures to boost renewables.
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