Public ‘will not forgive’ government for winter blackouts

The EU would be justified in being “sceptical” about exporting energy to the UK over the winter if the country continues to be “profligate” with supplies by not taking adequate demand reduction measures, delegates at the Conservative Party conference have been told.

Ed Birkett, head of energy and climate change at the right of centre thinktank Onward, told a fringe meeting at the conference that the government should launch a national energy saving campaign as part of a range of measures to curb demand during the next few winters.

Referring to the UK’s likely dependence on electricity imported via interconnector links with the Continent, he said: “We will be relying on the EU to send us energy at some point this winter and if they think we’re being profligate, then I think they’d be well within their rights to be more sceptical about sending that energy our way.”

He also said that the public will “not forgive” the government if there are blackouts this winter and it has not undertaken a campaign to encourage customers to save energy.

Birkett added that mandatory measures may be required to curb some businesses’ use of energy, pointing to patio heaters “blaring” out across London last weekend despite very mild temperatures.

“If the government really does think there’s a risk of blackouts, it’s a no brainer to try and get some of these turned off.”

He was speaking on the back of widespread coverage of Ofgem comments on potential gas shortages this winter. These were buried in a code modification proposal from SSE concerning the high imbalance charges gas-fired generators could face if their supply is cut off over the winter.

In it, the regulator admitted that the war in Ukraine and gas shortages in Europe mean there is “a significant risk that gas shortages could occur during the winter 2022/23 in Great Britain”. Ofgem accepted that if a gas generator was cut off and unable to supply the power it was contracted to, it could face overwhelming costs, which could lead to insolvency.

The code modification, which has been granted urgent status, seeks to solve this by removing traditional imbalance exposure in favour of agreeing suitable payments after the event.

Lagging on lagging

Birkett, who heads Onward’s Getting to Zero research programme, also criticised the government’s track record on energy efficiency over the past decade, pointing to what he described as an “absolutely staggering” 95% drop in walls and loft insulation measures between 2012 and 2017.

“The UK government’s record on energy saving is pretty is pretty bad since 2013,” he said, adding that this period had been entirely Conservative governments.

Referring to ex-prime minister Boris Johnson’s quip that the UK is “not lagging on lagging”, Birkett said: “Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

“A boom-and-bust approach to energy efficiency is not working and so we need sustained efforts over this spending review and subsequent spending reviews. It needs to be a-steady-as-she-goes approach,” he said, adding that investment in energy efficiency would have paid off “pretty quickly”.

“Where you get very high prices that actually make the business case for energy efficiency a lot better,” he said.

Security of supply will be a key part of the debate at Utility Week Forum on 8-9 November in London. Find out more here.