If Wales is to achieve both greater energy security and net zero by 2040, then we know we must generate significantly more renewable energy. Done right, this transition presents major opportunities for our people, businesses, and communities – creating jobs, building skills, and attracting investment – and a Plaid Cymru government will ensure Wales secures the full benefits.
As an immediate priority in government, we will develop a National Energy Strategy, mapping Wales’s current and future energy needs and setting out a clear, long-term plan for the infrastructure required to meet them. This will provide greater certainty for developers and communities alike, identify where new infrastructure is needed, and ensure Wales makes the most of emerging green technologies, including green hydrogen.
A new Renewable Energy Sector Deal will coordinate action between government, the renewables industry, further and higher education, communities and trade unions, while providing clearer planning requirements and firm, predictable consenting timelines for renewable energy projects.
A just transition means ensuring that people and communities have greater ownership over and see more of the benefits from renewables in Wales – and that they receive their fair share of the profits too.
Central to this ambition is devolving the Crown Estate and retaining the full value of leasing Welsh land and our seabed for renewable energy.
We will pursue the devolution of the Crown Estate with urgency, so that its profits are kept in Wales and invested for the long term through a new Wales Wealth Fund, supporting community energy, affordable and energy-efficient housing, and essential national infrastructure.
We will work to secure the full benefits for Welsh communities from energy projects that currently fall outside the devolution settlement, and support key strategic energy infrastructure – including the new infrastructure required to enable the electric arc furnace at Port Talbot. We will continue to press for the devolution of further powers, including over regulation and pricing.
A Plaid Cymru government will maximise meaningful Welsh ownership of renewable energy, ensuring that profits are reinvested in our communities and public services. We will expand Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru by integrating Ynni Cymru and the Welsh Government Energy Service – creating a single, strengthened national energy company with more clout, greater capacity to grow community ownership of renewable energy, and a clear remit to help reduce energy bills over the medium to long term.
To further ensure that our communities really benefit from renewable energy in Wales, we will:
- Prioritise meaningful community ownership and back the development of energy communities – supporting communities to come together to generate, use and conserve as much electricity and heat as they can locally and collectively, building energy self-sufficiency and helping to reduce bills.
- Extend permitted-development to give households, farms and businesses much greater flexibility to install their own small wind turbines, rooftop and small ground-mounted solar, batteries and heat pumps.
- Require a minimum community-ownership stake of between 15 and 25%, equivalent local-benefit model, Wealth Fund payment, or corresponding means of capturing community benefits for all energy projects over 10 MW, as a key condition of consent. We will also make sure that business rates on wind and solar farms are retained by those local authorities in which they are located.
- Ensure the scale, siting and cumulative impact of energy developments – including transmission and distribution infrastructure – are properly considered through the planning system, favouring well-designed, appropriately dispersed projects that balance local impact with efficient delivery, while protecting productive agricultural land.
- Immediately prohibit the use of large steel lattice pylons for new 11-132 kV lines in Wales, with a clear presumption in favour of undergrounding and overhead alternatives permitted only where installation is via low wooden poles or equivalent, less intrusive infrastructure.
- Examine innovative options for financing energy communities, household renewables and shared ownership of larger-scale developments, including via the Wales Wealth Fund and the Development Bank of Wales.