Energy could invigorate the Northern Powerhouse

“Energy businesses across the North should work together with local and national government to champion and drive forward the Northern Powerhouse.”

The Northern Powerhouse needs to place itself at the centre of the UK’s energy innovation agenda by being the first region to lead major collaboration across the industry. Securing the UK’s future energy supplies is one of the most important issues on today’s political agenda with ramifications for everyone from the individual householder to the Ministry of Defence.

And it is only collaboration between the different sectors making up the energy industry – renewables, oil, gas, nuclear, etc – that could meet the challenges of the energy trilemma of energy security, energy access and affordability, and lower carbon, that is, environmentally sustainable. Yet at the moment there seems to be little appetite for actually taking action on developing this collaborative approach nationally.

The government is open to new ideas and approaches where things are working well in order to inform the development of the national policy framework, but at the moment those models are simply not there.

This is where the Northern Powerhouse could come in. We’ve got an incredible asset base in terms of energy – nuclear, gas, electricity, renewables, offshore – and a comprehensive network of small and medium-sized enterprises primed for innovation. It’s all right here in the region. We could provide a framework for how the different strands of the sector could work together and provide part of the blueprint which could, over time, be rolled out nationally.

There’s already appetite for this collaboration in the sector. Mark Horsley, chief executive of Northern Gas Network has already worked with consultancy KPMG on a “Powering the North” report exploring these very issues

Starting to work together is the best way to reach, if not a solution, then the start of a solution, to an issue that affects all of us. Cross-sector collaboration in the industry is challenging and almost too big a task to tackle nationally, but the Northern Powerhouse is ideally placed to start a shift towards a collaborative way of working by “thinking big, acting small”.

What we need to do is paint the picture, plot the direction of travel, and then start taking those small steps that ensure we’re aligned and moving together in the right direction. But collaboration is not easy and requires dedicated resources.

To do this, energy businesses across the North and national and local government should explore the possibility of jointly funding a body to drive forward the agenda to achieve progress in this area. Once organisations have some money invested and own the agenda, they’re much more likely to push for results.

And there is a precedent for this sort of collaboration in the work of the Energy Innovation Centre, which was launched in 2008 to accelerate the discovery, development and deployment of innovation among energy firms.

This sort of collaboration is not rocket science but it does take commitment and the dedicated effort of senior players in the industry as well as both local and national government. Now is the time for deeds, not words, and the Northern Powerhouse is in a great position to start taking the actions required.

If we want incremental growth and change, businesses compete, but to achieve exponential growth and change, businesses need to collaborate.

Denise Massey, managing director, Energy ­Innovation Centre