BWEA, the UK’s leading renewable energy body, has responded to the Government’s decision to give the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations.

BWEA Chief Executive Maria McCaffery said “Nuclear may well play a part in the UK’s long term energy supply, but it cannot address the urgent need to fill the UK’s growing energy gap over the next 10 years.”

She added “The UK needs to take swift action to ensure the security of supply for our energy as our traditional supplies are retired. We cannot afford to wait until a new generation of nuclear is ready.

“There are already enough wind energy applications within the planning system to reduce significantly the impending energy shortfall.”

Even under the new fast track planning regime for major projects expected to be introduced in 2009, it will still take at least 10 years for a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built. Meanwhile, Britain faces an immediate supply shortage of home-grown energy as the current generation of nuclear and fossil fuelled power stations reaches the end of its life over the next decade.

By 2016, 7GW of the current 11GW of UK nuclear capacity will already have been retired. By 2023 there will be just one nuclear power station operating, Sizewell B – generating just over a single GW of electricity. The current aging generation of large fossil fuelled stations will have to comply with the tough new emission standards of the EU’s Large Combustion Plants Directive by 2015. This will mean that over 10GW of capacity will definitely be retired by 2015 and up to a further 15GW will either close or be severely restricted in use.

McCaffery added “Nearly a third of the UK’s domestic electricity supply could be decommissioned within the next decade. The only way to avoid Britain becoming massively over dependent on increasingly expensive imported gas is through the expansion of clean, affordable domestic wind, wave and tidal energy”