The UK is doing quite well with renewables, with over 65GW now installed and much more planned, helping it reduce carbon emissions. It should also mean that it is better able to cope with global fossil energy price rise shocks - it can provide a buffer.
‘Let's get control of our own energy so that whatever is happening in the world, we control what's happening in this country’, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says, adding ‘what gives us control is renewables, our own homegrown energy, which is then more secure & more independent, which is why I think that we should go further & faster in relation to renewables’. That’s good news, with more new jobs also being created as a result. Employment in ‘green’ jobs has expanded by nearly 28% over the last year, with much of that being in renewable energy and related areas, and many more are expected.
However, there are issues. For example, Max Lacey-Barnacle, a researcher at Sussex University Centre for Local Economic Strategies, warns that, although some jobs will be created in the UK, ‘we are not going to truly gain control of our renewable energy transition in the UK by handing over ownership and investment opportunities to international energy companies like Orsted (Denmark), EDF (France) and Equinor (Norway) and to huge asset management groups like Macquarie (Australia) or the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board’. For example, ‘many of these companies benefit & profit from the UK's CfD scheme, which is ultimately funded by our energy bills via the CfD Supplier Obligation Levy’.
Instead, he said ‘we need a much stronger mix of public, civil society and community ownership of the energy transition, which captures and recirculates the revenue flows of the energy transition locally’. And, he concluded, while ‘the UK's Local Power Plan, led by Great British Energy, begins to address this, with £1bn available to support 1000+ local and community energy projects… we also need bolder action that links the energy transition to wider economic reforms, as seen in the rapidly developing and global Community Wealth Building movement, which seeks to reorient economies around economic democracy and develop long-term strategies for deepening public, community and civil society involvement, ownership and control over economic futures’.
There is some practical progress being made in terms of community ownership of new solar farm and battery projects, but the renewable technology hardware is still mostly imported, often from China, although that may begin to change, given that the UK Government is worried about over-reliance on Chinese technology. It has already blocked the use of Chinese turbine blades for an offshore wind farm.
There are, however, some political risks closer to home, with Labour’s green energy policy being challenged by Reform, the Tories and others, arguing for a shift from renewables back to fossil gas. Even Great British Energy has pointed to North Sea gas playing more of an interim role while renewables developed. The War with Iran has pushed issues like this up the agenda, but so far Labour has stuck with its net zero energy policy. However, that policy does include, along with a strong commitment to renewables, major support for nuclear and for carbon capture and storage. Both are high cost, risky investment options: the large-scale viability of carbon capture looks particularly uncertain. But then so does the wide-scale use of nuclear SMRs - the technology is in its infancy, with one stalled early-US project evidently running up legal bills. And don’t be fooled by this bit of fake/AI news - it describes (and pictures) a UK SMR project which it says is already running. A bit optimistic!
That is not to say that pushing renewables ahead fast is easy. For example, there are local planning backlash issues in relation to the new grids that will be needed. Putting grid lines underground, or even undersea, where possible, is one way to avoid conflicts, but that costs very much more. Installing large energy storage units near to demand centres may be an easier option, getting economies of scale. But some still hanker for local, smaller hybrid wind /PV/storage solutions.
Well maybe that might be viable in some locations. So may biogas use and tidal energy. It is also good to see ITM’s pioneering green hydrogen electrolysis project getting more support. In addition, there a key role for energy efficiency initiatives in the housing sector, which can generate a lot of energy savings, and also employment, locally. So can community energy projects generally. However, the government’s emphasis at present still seems mostly to be on larger systems, and big energy supply projects, for example in relation to offshore wind, with Labour being very keen to see rapid job growth, and in particular jobs with ‘decent pay and the very best rights at work’, as DENZ's Ed Miliband said. He went on ‘by securing more clean, homegrown energy we are driving billions in private sector investment into UK ports, factories and manufacturing, unleashing a clean energy jobs boom from East Anglia to Aberdeen. But we must ensure these jobs are future-proof, secure and well-paid. So we are stepping in to make sure public funding serves the public good – raising the bar for workplace standards, giving workers access to trade unions and guaranteeing a stronger voice in how their workplaces are run’.
With some key local UK elections coming up soon, we may hear more of this sort of thing from Labour, as well as from the newly radical and popular Green Party. The Greens do have quite ambitious energy plans and a grass-roots action perspective, although, so far, their leader, Zac Polanski, has not put much emphasis on energy issues, other than to say they would back an energy price cap ‘covered by maintaining the windfall tax on energy companies and removing the exemptions for investing in fossil fuels, introducing a tax on ‘extreme wealth’ and equalising capital gains tax and income tax’. Well that is maybe enough to be getting on with… although their newly minted MP Hannah Spencer is evidently keen to get stuck in to a wider agenda.
However, leaving politics and policy debates aside , it will be interesting to see if, as energy costs rise following the Middle East war, the d-i-y ‘balcony solar’ plug in idea will catch on as a pragmatic option for those who can’t have roof-top solar? It’s likely to be fairly marginal - maybe £150 or so savings on annual bills from say a 800 watt panel costing around £400. But every little helps.
Comments
Post a Comment