Sunak announces £29.5bn of investment
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has released £29.5bn of investment, including the renewable energy sector, at a Global Investment Summit in London.
Various deals were announced, including renewable energy firm Iberdrola delivering £7bn of investment as part of a total £12bn programme for 2024-28 with North Star, owned by Partners Group in Switzerland, also committing £500 million and 400 new jobs to offshore wind infrastructure.
Gren, which recently acquired a network of waste and biomass assets, plans to invest up to £1 billion in district heating and local energy systems to deliver affordable green energy to more than 200,000 homes and thousands of businesses in the UK.
The projects come on the back of a huge spike in inward investment for renewables in the UK, rising from £19 billion in 2021 to £55 billion in 2022, with 11,500 jobs being created in the industry last year alone.
Australia’s IFM Investors also intend to invest £10bn over the next four years for large-scale infrastructure and energy transition projects, it said.
IFM has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department for Business & Trade to identify commercially viable opportunities, with potential projects including Nala Renewables, a UK-based portfolio company within IFM, which is actively seeking investment opportunities in the UK as it looks to achieve a renewable capacity target of 4GW by 2025.
Australian firm Aware Super have also committed more than £5 billion for projects in energy transition, affordable housing, life sciences, innovation, technology and digital infrastructure, after opening a UK office
The Government has also announcing the creation of three new regulatory sandboxes for hydrogen-powered aviation, autonomous marine vessels and drones, with Innovate UK launching a £110 million Investor Partnership for UK science and tech SMEs.
The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: Attracting global investment is at the heart of my plan for growing the economy. With new funding pouring into key industries like clean energy, life sciences and advanced technology, inward investment is creating high-quality new jobs and driving growth right across the country.
Business & Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said: “The numbers speak for themselves: we have the third highest levels of inward investment in the world at $2.7 trillion, we’re number one in Europe for new investment projects, and last year alone we created 107,000 jobs through inward investment.”
Energy Security Secretary Claire Coutinho said: “The UK is a world-leader in renewable energy and green industries. We have attracted £200bn in low carbon investment since 2010, with another £100bn expected by 2030, as we lead the second industrial revolution.”
Image of Rishi Sunak courtesy of the UK Government