BEAMA‘s Kelly Butler considers the role of GB Energy and why we need to empower local authorities in the energy transition.
We are more or less a month into the new government and there have been some pretty bold moves in pursuit of our energy transition towards electrification and building efficiency. None more so than the creation of the GB Energy Company, a project that started out as an investor vehicle, swung round into investor/operator, wobbled a bit, and then settled on that model.
GB Energy could just be the catalyst required to push forward the transition but it has a big job to do. This is not just a case of building off shore wind farms and other low to zero carbon generation; it should also address the fact that in reports this week from Energy UK, we have an average 11-13 year waiting list to connect new projects, and a queue of about 700GW of awaiting connection. And this is where GB Energy needs to play a role in being strategic in its approach to decarbonising our energy mix.
The holy grail of electrification can only really be achieved with a structured regional approach to improving housing stock, ensuring availability of low to zero carbon energy supply, facilitation of flexibility market offers to accommodate increases in heat electrification technologies and electric vehicles, and channel investment to ensure those technologies are attractive to customers and installers alike.
Local powers
For many years BEAMA has advocated the empowerment of local authorities, with channelled government investment, to bring together a coalition of market players who can effect change. For example, let’s say GB Energy became the oversight body for distributing regional investment funding, that could also extend to ownership of the Energy Company Obligation funding streams, focusing the Warm Homes initiative much shouted about by our new government, and steering the Boiler Upgrade Scheme spend towards areas with very clear 5-10 year ambitions for electrification. But why? Well, it is simple.
Let’s say a regional plan had the bold ambition of installing say 200,000 heat pumps – or heat batteries and other storage technologies – in five years, that sends a very big signal to installers who will consider upskilling (which is at their cost, remember!) because the size of the prize is clear.
They also know there will be support. Manufacturer training and marketing can be targeted to the areas with most potential for return; EPC and smart meter data can be used to target prospects on an area basis; we can return to the targeted advice model which was so successful in the 90s and 2000s; financial incentives can be marketed in a focused way; and finally, the network investment programme knows where its priority spend profile rests.
Electrification targets
The national approach hasn’t worked. We are at 10% of the 600,000 heat pumps by 2028 target which now seems to be being swept under the carpet, and we have finally realised we cannot force consumers to give up their gas or oil boilers unless we offer affordable choices. We just haven’t been able to capture the imagination of installers and consumers and our electricity prices are way out of kilter with more successful nations who have pursued electrification.
Numbers and targets are one thing – and they don’t work – but targeted action does. When we empower or push local authorities or the social housing sector we see action. The Home Energy Conservation Act in the 1990s was a remarkable success, as has been the Decent Homes Standard and the funding available. A history lesson is no bad thing. And let’s not forget, the government also wants to introduce a Decent Homes approach to the private rented sector; well that will need focus too.
The free market model hasn’t worked so we should all be applauding a more state interventionist style for energy because it is needed. Let’s hope that GB Energy’s powers go beyond generation, transmission and distribution because the whole value chain needs a rocket!
