Our energy policy needs a radical rethink

Relying on patchy renewables and importing electricity from the EU is simply not sustainable

News of energy planners having to fire-up a condemned 55-year-old coal plant last week to meet soaring power demand highlights the febrile nature of the UK’S energy policy. The warm weather and high electricity demand were not particularly unusual or unexpected: a spell of high pressure in the late summer conspired with the return to work and higher power demand after the holidays. But a central tenet of British energy policy, which has absorbed tens of billions of pounds in public investment, failed once again.

There are 11,000 onshore and offshore wind turbines in the UK, which together should deliver over 20 per cent of electricity supplies. The wind-free weather early last week meant they averaged approximately 3 per cent. Indeed, for a period last Monday, wind power supplied a pitiful 1.9 per cent of electricity supply nationwide.

In 2016, when I gave evidence to the Commons energy and climate change select committee inquiry into Brexit, the Remain-supporting committee wanted to know why leaving the EU could benefit our energy policy. The need for an independent, competitive and secure policy was clear then, and remains a priority today.

It is 30 years since electricity privatisation was correctly heralded as a breakthrough for lower bills and boosting consumer choice. But a generation of EU diktat, slavishly enforced by Whitehall, has resulted in uncertainty for investors and higher costs.

Since 2006, EU rules have demanded the closure of a third of Britain’s power stations. This reduction ran in tandem with the closure of older nuclear power stations. In Britain, power supplies from these coal, oil and nuclear plants have not been replaced like for like with cleaner equivalent capacity, and ministers have instead largely opted to rely on more renewables and importing electricity from the EU.

Compounding the problem, we have chosen to take a bold moral lead on climate change and energy policy, which our rivals have mostly ignored. That, very simply, has made us less competitive. Power bills for manufacturing firms are now a third higher than most EU rivals, causing jobs, industry and skills to be lost or moved overseas. Some sectors have suffered particularly badly; the steel industry faces costs 80 per cent higher than those in France and 60 per cent higher than those in Germany.

Meanwhile, in the past three decades, there have been 21 different Cabinet ministers responsible for energy, supported by 22 different junior ministers. Such churn in a single critical portfolio is one of the highest in Whitehall’s modern history and has, predictably, resulted in incoherence: we have just had yet another White Paper contradicting its predecessors.

Take carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) which is being enthusiastically supported again. CCUS was all the rage in the 2010 White Paper, but the plan and £1billion budget were dropped by ministers in 2015. Similarly, in 2012 the coalition government announced it wanted to see more than 20 new gas-fired power stations built, but this target was abandoned just three years later.

A key priority for ministers after Brexit must be improving energy security. Twenty years ago Britain was comparatively secure in the firm supply and diversity of fuels for generating electricity. Now, new statistics reveal a growing dependence on imports of electricity, as power stations shut without replacement and renewables fail to satisfy demand consistency. Plans to further electrify homes and transport this decade will exacerbate this issue.

Replacing reliable domestic electricity supplies with imports through undersea interconnector wires, whose flows rely on high prices here, is neither a responsible nor secure long-term plan; we require new reliable domestic power supplies. During the Brexit talks, the EU even threatened to cut off supplies in the event of “no deal”. At the very least we need a moratorium and urgent review into interconnectors.

A post-brexit Conservative energy policy must prioritise energy security and lower power bills in the national interest. Anything less represents a fundamental breach of responsibility, trust and judgment.