HOW TO DISRUPT THE UK ENERGY INDUSTRY – AND KEEP THE LIGHTS ON
A reckoning is due for Great British Energy – the UK government’s nascent £8.3b industry accelerator. Announced as the centrepiece of the UK “growth mission” its launch was accompanied by the news that it had spent £640m buying the nerve centre of the National Grid – the control room that apportions energy across the country on a live daily basis. In 2035 we may look back on that deal and think “only £640m…” British energy Minister Ed Miliband has firm plans to waste billions by then – on carbon capture and Contracts for Difference, as well as reparations to low-lying islands in the Pacific, and thousands of hotel nights spent attending Cops30-40.
Literally anything could happen to the UK energy supply this winter, and almost all of it is bad.
But there is also something we can all do in our individual communities – to prepare for possible power cuts, this winter or any other winter.
After all, every household in the UK spends an average of £1700 a year on energy.
Ed’s big problem is that he has raised expectations. He announced that not only will he solve the nation’s energy conundrum, but that he will also save money while doing it, keep the lights on, build 1.5m new home and launch a new global Britain on the back of it.
The energy industry, and the entire country, is waiting for action. But Britain can never be an energy super-power, and Ed must know this.
Consider the facts – Annual GB electricity consumption is 292.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2023, about the same as Texas, a vast state with multiple connectivity issues in outlying areas. The UK has a small, compact grid, which is currently undergoing major re-engineering for decarbonisation.
Electricity demand is forecast to grow at 5% a year, but generation is not increasing at the same pace until 2029. The maximum power to be provided by two new nuclear plants planned (if they are on time it would be a first) is 56TWh. And Ed wants sharp reductions in oil and gas for electricity production. That produces a shortfall of another 50TWh by 2029
Then there is a 10-yr waiting list for new housing estates to get on the grid. That’s right – ten years from time of application to secure a supply from the grid. Yet Labour says it will build at least a million homes in the next 4 years. How will it power the new homes? There is also a 10-yr waiting list for new solar farms to go on the grid, due to structural problems that require hundreds of miles of new cabling and pylons. Quite simply, the grid is not fit for purpose, and nor is there the slightest chance it will be re-engineered until well after 2030. Nevertheless, the government says it wants to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030.…
