But Stark, Miliband’s pick to head his department’s efforts to replace nearly all fossil fuels in the U.K. energy system with solar, wind and other clean power by 2030, said that green transition would still involve deals with Beijing.
“China will be present in the future energy system. Chinese tech will be present in the future energy system,” he said. “The question for us is the degree to which we want to see that happen, and where we want to see that happen.”
He pointed to Chinese battery storage technology and solar panels as investment opportunities, “with the right conditions attached to them, so we don’t have slave labor [brought] to this country.”
Batteries represent a technology where the U.K. “might actually want to invite the Chinese investment into this economy, because it is the best tech and chemistry in the world,” he said.
Security decisions
The government announced its decision in March to reject, on security grounds, Ming Yang’s proposed factory for building turbines.
On the same day, the government backed a different wind turbine factory proposed by European supplier Vestas.