A couple of months ago, the UK government’s Energy Secretary (Minister) Ed Miliband asked the head of NESO (the National Energy System Operator), Fintan Slye, how the target of a UK net zero electricity grid could be achieved by 2030. NESO has published its response now. Rather than saying ‘it’s impossible’, Slye has done the good civil servant thing and said ‘of course we can do this Minister, you just need to do a few things…’
Fortunately, he did not tell Miliband that he would have to turn lead into gold or walk on water to achieve the target. On the other hand, some of the conditions appear optimistic, to say the least. This is from the report with my comments in italics.
‘Clean power will require doing things differently. It will only be achieved with bold action and sustained momentum, across every area and every step of the way between now and 2030.
· Harness the value of flexibility for households, businesses, suppliers and aggregators by unlocking markets, promoting engagement and removing wider barriers. (The plan depends on lots more ‘flexibility’ i.e. consumers not using electricity at times of high demand. It also assumes domestic demand falls by 20%, according to excellent analysis by David Turver on his excellent Substack site).
· Contract as much offshore wind capacity in the coming one to two years as in the last six combined. (Really? Is that likely / feasible?)
· Deliver first-of-a-kind clean dispatchable technologies, such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen to power. (‘First of a kind’ means unproven of course, carbon capture being a great example).
· Build all the planned transmission network on time, which involves twice as much in the next five years as was built in total over the last decade. (Wow. Anyone looked at capacity in the construction sector)?
· Reform connection processes in 2025 to align with the clean power goal and future strategic plans. (Don’t know enough to comment. doesn’t sound easy though)
· Reform planning and consenting processes and improve community engagement. Key decisions on funding, awarding contracts, consenting and policy are needed within the next year to ensure construction on key projects starts as soon as possible. (For instance nuclear – and we know how that is going)
· Reform electricity markets while ensuring a stable and attractive investment environment, to secure over £40 billion of investment annually to 2030. (That doesn’t all have to be public money but is a lot more than we have seen being invested in recent years).
· Consolidate isolated and siloed digitalisation initiatives into a unified sector-wide prioritised plan, with expedited data sharing and enhanced decision-making driven through rapid adoption of artificial intelligence’. (Sounds pretty simple, eh?)
Worryingly, the report from NESO says this about the costs. ‘Looking across these effects in 2030, our analysis suggests a slight increase in total system costs for our New Dispatch pathway, equivalent to around £10 /MWh’. But there are some benefits offsetting this which means this.
“Our analysis in this report suggests that, together, these will lead to overall costs for clean power – the costs that are passed on to consumers – in 2030, that are no higher than they would have been without the shift to clean power’.
Now a certain proportion of the population might be prepared to pay more for the UK to be a leader in green power, but I suspect the vast majority of people, the ‘working people’ as Labour is calling them, care principally about the cost of their energy. But now, the best we can hope for is that if all the optimistic assumptions come off, electricity won’t be more expensive.
But hang on, wasn’t all this supposed to save us £300 a year? That was linked to the GB Energy idea but was basically around the drive to ‘clen power’. There now seems little confidence that a net zero grid is going to provide that, and if the government wastes money on unproven tech like carbon capture, or throws money at construction programmes to try and achieve an artificial 2030 deadline, then the costs are likely to be higher rather than lower.
But Slye has played this well from his own career perspective. ‘ I told the Minister exactly what was needed. It was his fault that it all went horribly wrong, nothing to do with me, guv’. The worry for Labour is that by the 2029 election, this is going to be a big stick for other parties to beat them with.