​EDP, the Portuguese utility firm, has announced plans to invest £12.8 billion in British renewables via its subsidiary business, EDP renewables. The plan is to make the investment over the next eight years to 2030. The investment will be alongside an existing investment in place from Ocean Winds, which is jointly owned by ENGIE and EDPR and focused on offshore wind. This project is in Moray West and Moray East and has around £2.65 billion of financial backing.

Around £660 million is going to be directed towards a portfolio of solar energy and onshore wind that will collectively generate 544 MW of renewable power. The CEO of EDPR and EDP, Miguel Stilwell d'Andrade, said that the plans to invest £13 billion in British renewable energy showed the firm's commitment to clean energy in the UK and represented a strategic market for the group's growth prospects.

He added that EDPR had an established position in offshore energy, now supported by the entry into onshore energy, and that it hoped to play a strategic role in Britain's transition to becoming a low-carbon economy. As well as supporting investment in new clean energy technologies, the arrangement will support new skilled jobs.

The news is certainly a positive boost ahead of the COP meeting of global leaders in November, when it is hoped that significant strides will be made towards implementing more meaningful and challenging climate change goals. Despite Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, saying at the last minute that he plans not to attend, many groups are hopeful of a positive outcome from the summit. The 'make or break' conference comes within a context of mounting global consumer pressure to make meaningful improvements to tackle the problems of climate change for once and for all.