A Labour government would establish a new publicly-owned energy generation company in Scotland, Keir Starmer announced on Monday. Fine, if expertise and jobs from the North Sea industry are to be transferred over time, Scotland is a logical place to put it. But the location is only a minor piece of the decision-making. Two more important questions about “Great British Energy” are these: how much money will it have to invest? And which investments would it prioritise?
There is – as yet – no hint of an answer to the first question, perhaps understandably if a general election is still more than a year away. But note that many outsiders think GBE would need an annual investment budget of £5bn-£10bn to make a meaningful difference to the pace of energy transition. Clarity can’t wait for ever.
But we are – at last – getting more detail on what the company would do. It would, for example, back a “local power plan” to build clean energy projects at a community level. Since there are numerous examples from Europe of successful municipal networks – from Germany and Norway – that seems uncontentious. Other examples where GBE would look to invest are described as emerging technologies, from green hydrogen, floating offshore wind to tidal and so on.
And, thankfully, Labour does not imagine that GBE would be a go-it-alone investor. It is talking the language of public-private partnerships and using public money as a way to de-risk projects. That all sounds commendable and pragmatic.
Yet, even among supporters of a new publicly-backed enterprise, there are doubts about whether GBE has got its emphasis in the correct place. Labour talks almost exclusively about the new company being a generator of power. But is generation really the top priority? The far trickier bit in energy transition – and the part where the UK is off the pace internationally – is decarbonising the industrial base.
Ed Miliband, the shadow climate secretary, will speak on Tuesday at King’s College London and one hopes he has digested the friendly thoughts of Nick Butler, the college’s visiting professor and energy economist. There is “a serious role” for a publicly-owned enterprise, agrees Butler’s 43-page report (also out on Tuesday), but transition is not all about generation capacity.
Here’s a key line from Butler’s report: “Much of the debate on energy policy focuses on extending the base of supply, but increased volume of low-carbon energy from wind or solar will only make a difference if consumers can use the energy produced as a substitute for their existing use of hydrocarbons.”
Exactly. There is no shortage of capital willing to invest in new offshore wind projects (even if one wishes more windfarms in UK waters were UK-owned). And, if a Labour government loosens the planning rules for onshore wind, as Starmer says it would, there would probably be a queue of investors there too.
So, if one were prioritising targets for state intervention in the energy system, big generation projects might be near the bottom. “The full potential of wind power … will only be delivered if there are significant advances in the use of electricity in areas such as heating, transport and industry – the sectors which account for the majority of current energy demand,” says the report.
Butler has a long list of ideas of priority investment, all of which could be grouped as demand, rather than supply, challenges: ensure the grid can handle large volumes of renewable power and be compatible with two-way transfers from electric vehicles; develop storage capacity to ensure renewable power is not wasted at times of excess supply; complete electrification of the railways, which should have happened years ago; develop a hydrogen network; and support development of a North Sea energy grid with other countries to mitigate challenges of intermittency.
Every item on that wishlist sounds fertile territory for a state-backed company – big stuff that requires heavy lifting and long-term backing. Decarbonising industry, note, is also where the bulk of subsidies under Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act are being directed.
Labour isn’t blind to the wider challenges, of course. Monday’s document on the plan to make Britain “a cleaner energy superpower” also recognised the need to upgrade the electricity transmission infrastructure and expand the grid’s capacity. But accelerating rail electrification, for instance, wasn’t mentioned.
It’s early days, but one wishes Labour’s vision for GBE was wider than clean energy generation. If the job of the company is to fill gaps in the national decarbonisation programme, there are some yawning holes that aren’t being talked about enough.
