The issues around how a government can assist with the development of renewable energy is currently a heated one.

The UK is set to have an election next week and the Labour party has made renewable energy a key part of its manifesto.

Its website says that it will make the UK a clean energy “superpower”.

Its plan states that it intends to develop a “Green prosperity plan” that will create 650,000 jobs by 2030 through usage of a national wealth fund.

Its targets are to double onshore wind and solar power and to quadruple offshore power. It also says that it will invest in carbon capture and storage (CCS) as well as hydrogen and marine power.

Labour intends to create a new state-owned company called “Great British Energy”. It says it will fund it with circa £8.3 billion in funding.

Interestingly it also says that it will make Britain the “green finance capital of the world” by mandating banks, asset managers and pension funds to invest “in credible transition plans that align with the 1.5c goal of the Paris agreement”.

While there are no precise details of the state-owned energy company this plan does represent a significant break with traditional energy policy in the UK.

Looking at Europe there are several state-owned energy companies.

A big player in the UK offshore wind market is Vattenfall, owned by the Swedish government.

Renewable energy giant Statkraft is owned by Norway. Meanwhile EDF Energy – a household name in the UK – is owned by France.

Another point mentioned in Labour’s manifesto is the “Local Power Plan”. Under this plan the state-owned Great British Energy will partner with energy companies and co-operatives to install renewable projects.

In the UK itself the biggest players are generally not British. Orsted, SSE Renewables, Iberdrola/Scottish Renewables, Equinor, the aforementioned Statkraft and RNE Renewables are not British with the exception of SSE Renewables, part of the wider SSE group.

ScottishPower is owned by Iberdrola, a Spanish energy company.