The Guardian newspaper in Britain is claiming that British Government officials are “trying to water down European Union plans to give priority access to green energy sources on national energy grids”. Britain’s support for nuclear power has been highlighted in recent weeks but this attempt to marginalise renewable energy initiatives is a new tactic.

The leaked documents show that Britain “wants to block attempts to give renewable electricity sources such as wind farms priority access to the national grid. The European official who drafted the legislation accused Britain of “obstructing” EU efforts on renewables and said UK officials wanted to protect traditional energy suppliers and their coal, gas and nuclear power stations”.

The EU renewables draft directive is “intended to support an EU target to generate 20% of energy from renewable sources by 2020”. According to the Guardian the draft directive proposes that: “Member states shall also provide for priority access to the grid system of electricity produced from renewable energy sources”.

“However, documents seen by the Guardian show Britain wants to change “shall” to “may” – which experts say would seriously undermine the directive.”

A recent commons select committee in Britain found that “9.3GW of wind power projects were currently waiting” to be connected to British electricity grid. The Guardian claims that this is “the equivalent of a new generation of nuclear power stations”.

Better access to the energy grid within member states and across the EU would be a vital part of an effective EU strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emission and this action by Britain could be followed by other EU nuclear power producers like France, so it seems that we can have a green EU or a nuclear one, but for now the nuclear lobby is marginalising renewable energy initiatives.