Upgrading the national grid is not solely an environmental issue
Energy infrastructure was not always considered to be an ecological issue. The national grid was constructed in 1935 to connect the electricity generating capacity across Great Britain to aid re-development after the first World War. It was identified as a key point of infrastructure to keep industry going and ensure individuals have reliable access to energy.
The environmental turn of the 21st century has changed approaches to energy infrastructure: rhetoric has begun to focus more on building renewable energy sources, achieving net-zero goals, and producing ‘green’ jobs. But thinking about energy infrastructure in this way obscures the complexity and urgency of updating the grid. The reason you should care about the grid is not an ecological one. Our reliance on oil is an issue of national security.
The government privatised energy generation companies from 1986 onwards. Today the main providers are Octopus energy, British Gas, E.ON Next, OVO Energy, EDF Energy, and Scottish Power. Don’t let names fool you, Scottish Power is owned by Spanish energy firm Iberdola. As these companies are privately owned, they are free to export energy generated in the UK. However, this does not mean they need to sell energy to the UK if they don’t deem it profitable.
According to the Energy Guide, the UK imports a third of its gas from Norway, which is also the UK’s main supplier of oil and currently supplies the UK with around 11.7 million metric tons of crude oil annually.
The UK’s next biggest importer of oil is the United States. President Trump in his inaugural address announced: “we will drill, baby, drill,” promising to make America a rich nation again by using “that liquid gold under our feet”. According to the BBC, “since 2016, production of American oil has gone up by 70%, and the US is now the world’s dominant producer and exporter.”
The UK’s infrastructure is reliant on resources that are politically brittle and historically dripping in blood. This often leads to countries who are vying for access to oil resources fighting for control. It should therefore be no surprise that the United States has been a central figure in several conflicts concerning the control of oil resources. See the Wars in Iraq. See also neo-colonialism. To maintain infrastructure reliant on oil, is to maintain violent systems of power.
In 2022, Europe was held as an energy hostage by Russia, who is a main exporter for resources into the continent. In 2021, Europe imported 40% of its natural gas from Russia. However, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, supplies have been cut to countries who have implemented sanctions and have refused to pay for gas in roubles. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “Russia is blackmailing us. Russia is using energy as a weapon”.
While the UK gets less than 5% of its gas from Russian imports, gas prices rose in accordance with global markets. In the UK the cost of energy is set by the last unit of electricity needed to meet demand from consumers. Therefore, if gas generates 1% of power required, it will set the price. To truly reduce costs on British consumers, it appears nothing less than complete self-sufficiency will be necessary.
In the Scottish Government, the SNP’s ‘Green Industrial Strategy’ focused on asserting Scotland within the global economy by creating more renewable power sources. Considering the Scottish Government released data showing Scotland’s renewable energy technology could produce 113% of required energy, the issue lies with energy distribution and storage. Incentivising the building of more energy production does not provide the UK with more energy because the grid system has not been sufficiently updated to cope with renewable power sources.
The UK grid network is run by Ofgem, and all policy issues have to be passed through Westminster. This means even though Scotland could hypothetically go green and be free of international leveraging, unless Westminster prioritises upgrading the grid, this is just not feasible.
What the UK government has done instead is create Great British Energy, a new state-owned company “owned by the British people, to deliver power back to the British people”. Yet another renewable power generation project, GB Energy will use funding from a windfall tax on oil and gas producers, meaning green energy can only grow in the shadow of Big Oil.
Energy Secretary, Ed Miliband, announced that the budget for the 2024 renewable energy auction is being increased by £500 million to over £1.5 billion. The UK government press release cited the cost-of-living crisis and the “UK’s over-reliance on fossil fuel markets [that were] exploited by Putin” as cause for this increased investment in clean energy – neither of which sound like ‘green’ reasons.
The UK spent £53.9 billion on defence in the 2023/2024 financial year. One of the parameters of the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) 2024-2025 is: “The first duty of Government is to keep the country safe and protect its citizens. The SDR will examine the Defence capabilities and options to reinforce UK homeland security.”
The greenwashing of issues around energy infrastructure has prevented the importance of updating the national grid from being completely realised, pushing the responsibility of financing the grid onto the British consumer as opposed to the Government. Instead, the Government should treat the grid updates the same way they do all threats to national security – by throwing lots of money at it.
