The boss of one of Britain’s biggest home energy providers thinks the chances of winter blackouts were unlikely – despite fears over gas supplies caused by war in Ukraine.
Greg Jackson said the UK had strong infrastructure in place to deal with drops in fossil fuel, partly thanks to investment in renewable energy.
Octopus in particular – which has major bases in Leicester and Greater Manchester – uses technology such as solar and wind to offset carbon emissions and says 100 per cent of its electricity is green.
The group’s generation business recently teamed up with the Nest pension scheme to take a £200 million stake in the Hornsea One Wind Farm, off the Yorkshire coast, which is one of the world’s biggest operational offshore wind farms.
It follows investments in the Lincs Offshore Wind Farm on behalf of Octopus Renewables Infrastructure Trust, the Borssele V Offshore Wind Farm in the Netherlands, and in floating offshore wind developer Simply Blue.
Last year Nest appointed Octopus to help it invest billions in green energy on behalf of Nest’s 11 million pension savers.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Jackson said: “I think the reality is that domestic supply is safe and that industry, from time to time, sometimes driven by prices, by the way, voluntarily reduce their energy usage.
“So, we have a terrible price crisis, but I think the UK is more fortunate than many of our European neighbours that we’ve got more resilient supply.
“You know, this is a fossil fuel crisis. Make no mistake, the cause of this crisis is that we’re too dependent on fossil fuels, often from regimes where, you know, we see what (Vladimir) Putin’s doing in Ukraine.
“The fossil fuels give those regimes both the funding and the leverage.
“We need to escape from the clutches of fossil fuels. And we’ve heard fossil fuel crises periodically ever since I was a kid and probably before that.
“This is different, because, for the first time ever, we’re sitting on the solution to escape fossil fuels altogether – moving to a system that’s powered by electricity, electricity coming from homegrown renewables, from increased interconnection from things like nuclear.
“We have the ability to build a system that isn’t dependent on fossil fuels anymore, and it will be cheaper than the one we’re in even before the crisis, and it will stop us being at the mercy of crises like this.”
Mr Jackson also said the current level of Government support was not enough as things got worse.
He said: “Clearly it’s not sufficient now and, you know, we need to look at a similarly significant assistance from the Government for this winter.”
He also called for energy companies and the Government to work together to solve the crisis.
He said: “And, you know, there is no company that can tackle this problem alone or indeed working just with other companies. It needs companies and governments to work together. And, you know, we’ve been working with Government for a year.
“I think, as I said, the last support package was really significant. It’s just that the crisis has deepened since then, and that’s why it needs revisiting.”
He added: “We just know that the level of increases is going to be unmanageable for so many without the right support from the Government and it’s beyond what any one company can do.”
