Putting a human face on the energy transition

With the clock ticking towards the 2050 deadline for a net zero economy, the energy sector has a mammoth challenge ahead in facilitating the transition. Recently-appointed Energy UK chief executive Emma Pinchbeck tells Utility Week how she wants the sector to better communicate the benefits of the transition to the public, and how the government needs to step up its efforts on the smart meter rollout.

“I think the board only appoints someone like me if they know there is a moment of change happening”, Energy UK chief executive Emma Pinchbeck tells Utility Week. As the UK looks to decarbonise, the energy sector has a monumental challenge ahead and the trade body is at the centre of this great shift. She is acutely aware that this transition requires a communications strategy that brings all sectors of society on board and encourages the take up of new technologies.

Earlier this year, Pinchbeck replaced Lawrence Slade after serving as Renewable UK’s deputy chief executive. Prior to this she headed the climate change team at WWF-UK where she led the team in campaigning on the Paris Agreement, on international aviation emissions and on the UK’s coal phase out.

Says Pinchbeck: “With most of the organisations I’ve joined, I arrived at a tipping point for industry. With Renewable UK, I joined with a view to helping the renewables industry as it transitioned from outsider to mainstream. With WWF, I joined as we were trying to secure an international deal on climate change and helping the UK government think about coal phase out, big strategic moments.

“With the Energy UK job, it seems to me that industry is at this point of disruption because of the new technologies coming in, more competition in the retail market and changing consumer attitudes on climate change and our expectations about business. There’s this desire for something different and I suspect that my appointment recognises that and certainly most of my members have talked to me about that.”

Pinchbeck’s passion and enthusiasm for the sector she leads is clear. She lives and breathes energy policy and is keen advocate of renewable technologies. Additionally, she hopes her personable approach will help put a human face on a notoriously complex sector.

She continues: “I am very much someone that thinks about how policy change impacts people and wants to speak ‘ordinary human’ about some of the stuff that we do for our day jobs which is quite complicated and frankly boring.”

She adds: “I’m a proper geek about this stuff, I will go toe to toe with any engineer on the finer details of the capacity market or how a wind turbine gearbox works. But also, I live with someone who isn’t remotely interested in energy policy. I think when we’re talking about what we want to see change in the industry, we have to remember that it impacts people like my husband who don’t care about the capacity market but absolutely do care about having lights on in their home, and try and have normal conversations. I think I am a people person with the brain of a real geek.”

For the new chief executive, the industry’s two priorities in the short-term are unlocking private investment in the sector to help the transition and creating more flexible energy markets.

She says: “We desperately need to look at our flexibility markets and unlock new commercial models and enable everyone from our retailers through to aggregators, flexibility services providers, battery and EV owners, anyone that’s got a flexible asset or interest in the system, to be able to properly access the market so that they can build new business models, and reduce the cost of decarbonisation.

“There’s some frustration there that we are not sorting out smart meters and EVs and the underpinning infrastructure. When you look at EV charging infrastructure, there’s a very clear role for government in sorting that out and we’d be keen to see a decent rollout of charging infrastructure. If you look across the next decade it’s going to be changes in how we heat our homes and the things that we’re using for mobility that are really big for people. I think there’s a feeling in industry that we need to crack on with the job and think about how they match up to the wider energy system.”

Promoting the benefits of smart metering

The smart meter rollout has been a major source of contention within the sector in recent years, with deadlines being extended as targets look increasingly unlikely. Covid hit the rollout hard in the early days of the pandemic, with April seeing an almost 95 per cent decrease in installations as all but essential installs were halted.

With several major setbacks there has been plenty of negative media coverage of the rollout, much to Pinchbeck’s dismay. Most recently, it was revealed that network operator SSEN had controversially proposed to use smart meters to disconnect home chargers and other low-carbon technologies if they are at risk of overloading the local infrastructure. Pinchbeck says she was concerned about the negative narrative arising from the subsequent press coverage, adding that the government needs to step up and promote the rollout in a more positive light.

“The biggest concern in that for me is unfortunately there was a bit of a narrative about smart meters being a difficult thing for customers again. From the industry’s point of view, smart meters are absolutely essential for the future energy system. They’re essential to both help customers and also keep the costs down of running the future system.

“We frequently say this to government but it can’t just be industry trying to tell customers that smart meters are good, we need government and trade bodies to be talking about interventions in people’s homes as something that’s positive, something that’s going to benefit them, something that’s helpful and not scary.”

Another area of concern for the energy sector during the pandemic has been the inability of customers to pay bills, with unemployment on the rise.

Following the introduction of restrictions in March, the government and energy suppliers agreed emergency measures, including the suspension of the disconnection of credit meters, to ensure the most vulnerable customers were protected.

Pinchbeck reveals that the sector is once again in talks with the government, in light of further restrictions being announced and an uncertain winter ahead.

“We are talking to government again because of the restrictions that have come in and as a part of the economy with a big responsibility to the public we are looking at what we need to do to keep the lights on and keep everyone safe through the winter. In terms of our relationship with government, I think they have done a really good job of engaging with industry and I hope that that continues and certainly the secretary of state moved quite quickly to get industry in a room again as they were announcing new measures, we’ll see how it goes.”