The UK’s new Labour government may need to approve new gas-fired power stations as part of the strategy to decarbonise the country’s electricity systems by 2030.

This is one of the findings from the report “Rapid decarbonisation of the GB electricity system” just released by the National Engineering Policy Centre.

The report states that physical delivery of the required system will be “fundamentally an engineering challenge that needs the highest levels of political and engineering leadership, alongside significant co-investment from the public and private sectors.”

Quoting from the report, the Guardian’s Fiona Harvey writes, ”Keeping the lights on for the rest of the decade, and beyond will require some additional baseload power, and new nuclear power stations will not be built in time.” This is the case, she says, even though all existing gas-fired power stations across the UK “are expected to be kept going as long as possible.”

Other findings from the report include the need for “updating the UK’s creaking electricity grid and erecting the new pylons required for the transmission of power from a new generation of onshore and offshore wind and solar farms.”

The report advises a cautious approach to biomass, warning that it’s “only worth supporting if the emissions savings are genuine and based on sustainable feedstocks,” which. It states, “is contested for biomass pellet imports to the UK.”

Download the report here.