GB energy

Lala said:
This is probably my naivety now, but why can’t we re-nationalise energy, cut out the shareholders, and therefore keep consumer prices down ?
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Quite.

Something else to thank Margaret for.

National infrastructure should be Government controlled to enable strategic not for profit decisions to be made.

They're starting with the railways as the current contracts end.

Utilities should be next.
 
Lala said:
This is probably my naivety now, but why can’t we re-nationalise energy, cut out the shareholders, and therefore keep consumer prices down ?
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Actually they could as it's the act of many dictatorships- it just sends the markets scrambling in fear of who is next.

Main issue seems to be the actual network (just like our privatisation of trains). It's not fit for purpose
 
Chunkylad said:
Actually they could as it's the act of many dictatorships- it just sends the markets scrambling in fear of who is next.

Main issue seems to be the actual network (just like our privatisation of trains). It's not fit for purpose
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Lack of investment in infrastructure, so there's a surplus of power in areas like Scotland, but no means to get it to where its needed.
 
Wizaard said:
Lack of investment in infrastructure, so there's a surplus of power in areas like Scotland, but no means to get it to where its needed.
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Exactly.

Our privatisation of the infrastructure has been a disaster. Private producers cannot get the power generated down to where it is needed and get paid to not produce it (Amazing deal).

You can argue this against net zero - the main 'green' production areas are nowhere near where the energy demand is and therefore pretty pointless without an infrastructure to get it there. If they could just move all those Scottish Windfarms down to the Home Counties then we'd be dandy. Or just put in an infrastructure to cope and take advantage of the production we have.

It's just another version of the water companies not building reservoirs and network rail not building more tracks.
 
EdgeleyTangerine said:
Wouldn’t it just be easier to stop the current government energy companies from being a bunch of greedy b*astards? Perhaps even get rid of the standing charge?
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Similarly, wouldn't it just be easier to just scrap, or further extend the Net Zero time limit that is grossly inflating the consumers electricity bill?

We have the most expensive electricity bills in the western world thanks to this net zero fundamentalism..
 
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Lala said:
I was watching a program yesterday that seemed to imply that the regulator no longer has the power that it should have ?
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Interesting? When did they have their powers removed?

So basically toothless then Lala, hence why we are so well served in this country for gas and electric?

Forgetting us all as consumers, one thing all businesses use is energy. Even if you are a work from home or sat in a coffee shop PC based person you're using up power. So our pathetic energy policy in this country doesn't help any business be competitive
 
Chunkylad said:
You're right.

However if we had the money, would you nationalise it all or leave it as it is in the private sector?
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Nationalise the national grid, invest in it so that it’s for purpose, then buy the power from the generators at a reasonable price. (It’s not as if they can sell it anywhere else)
 
Lala said:
This is probably my naivety now, but why can’t we re-nationalise energy, cut out the shareholders, and therefore keep consumer prices down ?
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firstly, a majority of UK energy companies are foreign owned, and re-nationalising would be seen by some as an act of aggression against them, with trade deal consequences.
secondly, even with those foreign generators and distributors the UK still has to import about 15% of its electricity; from the Netherlands mostly, which means A) risks to supply in any re-nationalisation from sanctions from foreign operators. and B) UK national debt would have to seriously increase to make the necessary investments in energy infrastructure.
thirdly the UK energy companies shares are a big part of UK working peoples pensions, and although not a particularly good investment long term they are performing investments and suddenly re-nationalising over a trillion pounds worth of assets would have a significant effect on UK pensions. In the same vein it would create significant market jitters in various other privatised infrastructure sectors, again affecting pensions of normal working people.

I personally think energy should not be in the hands of private companies, but unfortunately five decades of privatisation programmes, low investment, and a lack of strategic planning has meant the UK hit a point of no return towards the end of the Blair administration in regards the privatised operating model.

I am also of the opinion that government has rarely been competent in running state businesses, and with the polarised nature of government now nationalisation would be a disaster, a political football with frequent plans to de and re-nationalise with every change of administration.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
firstly, a majority of UK energy companies are foreign owned, and re-nationalising would be seen by some as an act of aggression against them, with trade deal consequences.
secondly, even with those foreign generators and distributors the UK still has to import about 15% of its electricity; from the Netherlands mostly, which means A) risks to supply in any re-nationalisation from sanctions from foreign operators. and B) UK national debt would have to seriously increase to make the necessary investments in energy infrastructure.
thirdly the UK energy companies shares are a big part of UK working peoples pensions, and although not a particularly good investment long term they are performing investments and suddenly re-nationalising over a trillion pounds worth of assets would have a significant effect on UK pensions. In the same vein it would create significant market jitters in various other privatised infrastructure sectors, again affecting pensions of normal working people.

I personally think energy should not be in the hands of private companies, but unfortunately five decades of privatisation programmes, low investment, and a lack of strategic planning has meant the UK hit a point of no return towards the end of the Blair administration in regards the privatised operating model.

I am also of the opinion that government has rarely been competent in running state businesses, and with the polarised nature of government now nationalisation would be a disaster, a political football with frequent plans to de and re-nationalise with every change of administration.
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So GB energy maybe the best and only option. Will GB energy have shareholders or be nationally owned ?
 
I don’t know what the answer is but we’ve got ourselves(the uk) in a right pickle with energy . Fudged the nuclear option for decades ,energy both for business and residential is way too expensive and our answer is build some windmills and solar farms 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
Costero Poderoso said:
firstly, a majority of UK energy companies are foreign owned, and re-nationalising would be seen by some as an act of aggression against them, with trade deal consequences.
secondly, even with those foreign generators and distributors the UK still has to import about 15% of its electricity; from the Netherlands mostly, which means A) risks to supply in any re-nationalisation from sanctions from foreign operators. and B) UK national debt would have to seriously increase to make the necessary investments in energy infrastructure.
thirdly the UK energy companies shares are a big part of UK working peoples pensions, and although not a particularly good investment long term they are performing investments and suddenly re-nationalising over a trillion pounds worth of assets would have a significant effect on UK pensions. In the same vein it would create significant market jitters in various other privatised infrastructure sectors, again affecting pensions of normal working people.

I personally think energy should not be in the hands of private companies, but unfortunately five decades of privatisation programmes, low investment, and a lack of strategic planning has meant the UK hit a point of no return towards the end of the Blair administration in regards the privatised operating model.

I am also of the opinion that government has rarely been competent in running state businesses, and with the polarised nature of government now nationalisation would be a disaster, a political football with frequent plans to de and re-nationalise with every change of administration.
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I wouldn't worry too much about where pensions are invested as the fund manager can move it to a different company / sector / mix at any time and often do to maximum returns. Our pensions were once invested heavily in tobacco companies.

I completely hear you on competency of Govt running state businesses and share that concern. However to counter that, our European neighbours seem perfectly capable of doing rail or energy in this manner so why couldn't we? The bar for performance is pretty low as it is.
 
Lala said:
Is that a permanent impossibility then ?

Does it not make sense for the government to borrow to do this, for long term economic benefits ?
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It would have to be a much longer term strategy and probably one when all the green infrastructure is in place, which is costly in itself. At the moment energy prices are driven by world events and by our Government not exploiting our own oil resources. Nationalisation wouldn't change much on that. And, the need to expand some of our nuclear capacity will not be cheap. The Government's claim that energy prices will come down is a fantasy, unless everyone has solar panels and a wind turbine. These, and heat pumps, are costly upfront and would take many years fir pay back.
The GB Energy company is not really about owning energy production, but to pump prime initiatives to encourage more private sector investment.
 
Lala said:
So GB energy maybe the best and only option. Will GB energy have shareholders or be nationally owned ?
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based on what I've read so far GB energy is not really any kind of option, it seems to be a way of spaffing 8 plus billion pounds into the hands of existing energy companies, "acceptable energy start ups" and local politicians and political movements. There isn't any real detail, current literature is simply political sloganising, "road to energy sustainability", "job creation", "local communities", "working with energy "and political" partners"" etc etc blah blah blah. Its a platform for new energy in the same way that HS2 was new line for trains.

Fossil fuels are running out and there is a need for transition to sustainables. The problem in my opinion starts with current infrastructure, a national centralised grid for all needs, which sustainables cannot easily be dropped into. For every wind and solar farm you really have to have fossil fuel back up for when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine. The energy needs of heavy industry are very different from large commercial or small commercial or domestic needs, and that is before we get to energy needs for personal and mass transport. At the moment it is all in the same pot. if each segment of energy use is looked at independently (as part of a wider holistic strategy) domestic needs could be transitioned quite easily, however there are numerous non-energy issues such as planning law, and the power of institutions such as English Heritage to overcome, as well as the the problems of discarding the current energy companies (as i outlined previously) that it requires massive legislative change which goes into a lot of social issues. the reality is that its a 3 to four government cycle project to even get the groundwork in place, and with politics obsessed with non issues such as immigration, and "woke" (whatever that might be) actual change is pretty much impossible.
 
So there is very little chance of us owning our own national energy sources, and we are going to rely constantly on foreign businesses and private companies, regulated poorly, and holding the UK consumer to ransom ?
 
Chunkylad said:
I wouldn't worry too much about where pensions are invested as the fund manager can move it to a different company / sector / mix at any time and often do to maximum returns. Our pensions were once invested heavily in tobacco companies.

I completely hear you on competency of Govt running state businesses and share that concern. However to counter that, our European neighbours seem perfectly capable of doing rail or energy in this manner so why couldn't we? The bar for performance is pretty low as it is.
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My point would be is that if you re-nationalise a series of infrastructure concerns you undermine the basic tenet of the UK markets, pension holders are always the last to get out of any bad financial situation so moving into other sectors isn't that much of an option. I've looked at this with a bunch of colleagues and we cannot build a model (based on typical current capitalism orthodoxies) where the ultimate point of a) immediate financial suffering, and b) medium to long term liability falls on the working population.

European infrastructure like trains and energy are on the surface better run, Spain is currently seeing a huge corruption scandal associated with infrastructure in transport and energy. France has a completely different attitude to social programmes, when French governments try to change to more anglo centric models ie, capital biased privatisation (market profitised) the French protest and set most of the country on fire. One of the reasons that the French, Spanish and Italian infrastructure companies are so strong is that they ignored EU private market and state ownership protection laws for two to three decades, Even under (completely ineffective) EU sanctions, French, Spanish and Italian governments backed what were simply pseudo public privatised organisations, with both government funding and legislative inaction to protect incumbent organisations.

The bar for performance is pretty low, my own experience is in developing community corps organisations that are public owned through government but run independently from government, with the public being direct shareholders. Even the UK's history of arms length organisations is not good, the post office springs instantly to mind, but the national audit office is of the opinion that all ALOs are problematic one level or another and there is system issues across the board.
 
Lala said:
So there is very little chance of us owning our own national energy sources, and we are going to rely constantly on foreign businesses and private companies, regulated poorly, and holding the UK consumer to ransom ?
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Under this particular government yes, under any other government "Lib Dems, Tory, Reform, even The Greens) possibly even worse scenarios: and its not just energy, water, transport finance and the next one in my opinion is data, all of them are creaking.
 
Lala said:
So there is very little chance of us owning our own national energy sources, and we are going to rely constantly on foreign businesses and private companies, regulated poorly, and holding the UK consumer to ransom ?
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The sources of energy can be largely domestically generated - a mix of oil, wind, nuclear, solar, etc. If the strategy allowed this. Our own pension funds and businesses could be encouraged to invest more and have a bigger proportion of UK ownership. They haven't been encouragdd by successive Governments and even the Government's current net zero agenda seems to be encouraging more foreign companies than UK ones. With water, which is failing in terms of delivery and carrying huge debts there may be some limited nationalisation and a much tighter regulatory regime. But I cannot see a widespread nationalisation even there, because of the cost, which inevitably will fall on the taxpayer. And at a time when the Government is already skint and in a financial bind without either material increases in tax or cuts in spending.
The time to nationalise things is when you have plenty of money to do so and to invest to improve.
 
Wizaard said:
Quite.

Something else to thank Margaret for.

National infrastructure should be Government controlled to enable strategic not for profit decisions to be made.

They're starting with the railways as the current contracts end.

Utilities should be next.
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The argument has always been that the state didn’t want utility debt counted as national debt. Accounting rules have now changed so state owned utility companies can borrow at much lower interest rates than private companies and don’t have to pay off shareholders and frankly damage a load of money on the army of people managing reputation.
 
bfcpete said:
The sources of energy can be largely domestically generated - a mix of oil, wind, nuclear, solar, etc. If the strategy allowed this. Our own pension funds and businesses could be encouraged to invest more and have a bigger proportion of UK ownership. They haven't been encouragdd by successive Governments and even the Government's current net zero agenda seems to be encouraging more foreign companies than UK ones. With water, which is failing in terms of delivery and carrying huge debts there may be some limited nationalisation and a much tighter regulatory regime. But I cannot see a widespread nationalisation even there, because of the cost, which inevitably will fall on the taxpayer. And at a time when the Government is already skint and in a financial bind without either material increases in tax or cuts in spending.
The time to nationalise things is when you have plenty of money to do so and to invest to improve.
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The "IF" in "If the strategy allowed this" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Getting pension funds and businesses to invest would be all well and good, but one problem is the culture of the markets, sustainable energy investments which go to long term domestic energy security whether in fossil fuels, nuclear or sustainables requires the markets to shift focus from short term relatively high risk, capital biased, rentier models to long term productive investments. Secondly in order to for British pension funds and business to invest in British energy you still have to expect foreign owners to divest, which still creates the issues with a generalised lack of confidence in British markets.

"The time to nationalise is when there is plenty of money" is the exact point that the privatisation adherents have their justification for privatised activity.
 
Lala said:
Is that a permanent impossibility then ?

Does it not make sense for the government to borrow to do this, for long term economic benefits ?
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i missed this question: it probably is a permanent impossibility unless there is radical change in economic management, social and cultural outlook.

Borrowing would be an answer, but it needs to be allied to a strategy that has a wider point of view than profits for a few energy companies and it would need to be connected to a 20 to 30 year plan, which no UK Government in the, firstly because politicians are uniquely concerned with staying in power, therefore short term non issues take precedence. Secondly the interests of the fossil fuel lobby and other interested incumbents in the current socio-economic systems have politicians in their pockets. Rachel reeves setting out economic policy based on the advice of big banks is a case in point.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
firstly, a majority of UK energy companies are foreign owned, and re-nationalising would be seen by some as an act of aggression against them, with trade deal consequences.
secondly, even with those foreign generators and distributors the UK still has to import about 15% of its electricity; from the Netherlands mostly, which means A) risks to supply in any re-nationalisation from sanctions from foreign operators. and B) UK national debt would have to seriously increase to make the necessary investments in energy infrastructure.
thirdly the UK energy companies shares are a big part of UK working peoples pensions, and although not a particularly good investment long term they are performing investments and suddenly re-nationalising over a trillion pounds worth of assets would have a significant effect on UK pensions. In the same vein it would create significant market jitters in various other privatised infrastructure sectors, again affecting pensions of normal working people.

I personally think energy should not be in the hands of private companies, but unfortunately five decades of privatisation programmes, low investment, and a lack of strategic planning has meant the UK hit a point of no return towards the end of the Blair administration in regards the privatised operating model.

I am also of the opinion that government has rarely been competent in running state businesses, and with the polarised nature of government now nationalisation would be a disaster, a political football with frequent plans to de and re-nationalise with every change of administration.
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I take issue with you here. Government owenership has nowhere near explored the management options available to it. It doesn't have to be like it's been in the past. The only involvement needed by the Government is to set a national strategy for the industry in wuestion. Hence, no need for nationalising retail operations. It's national utilities, transport, IT network and Infrastructure that should be nationalised. Nothing else.
 
1966_and_all_that said:
I take issue with you here. Government owenership has nowhere near explored the management options available to it. It doesn't have to be like it's been in the past. The only involvement needed by the Government is to set a national strategy for the industry in wuestion. Hence, no need for nationalising retail operations. It's national utilities, transport, IT network and Infrastructure that should be nationalised. Nothing else.
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I'd grant that the options haven't been fully explored, and it doesn't have to be like it has in the past but in the current climate with the lack of innovative thinking amongst politicians and their tendency to appoint useful idiots in positions of authority I cannot see how it would be different. It can work in different and I've been involved in programs for a couple of different governments, I just can't see it in the UK currently. I've been approached a couple of times in relation to UK arms length bodies but the moment it gets to really addressing core issues and resolutions historic orthodoxies tend to crop up. My whole ethos is based on developing radically new models
 
Has Jurgen earned his £200K + yet?

Bearing in mind he didn't have a proper office and hadn't actually done anything constructive when he was first interviewed....I very much doubt it.

Him and Miliamp probably locked in a cupboard somewhere.
 
Has anyone worked out what it's supposed to do with its £8bn yet?

Invest in energy projects that no-one else would touch with a bargepole?

Bail out Thurrock Council for the £500 million they lost investing in exactly this sort of energy scams.

Recruit a staff of thousands with nothing to do except write DEI policies and worry about their pronouns?

I am genuinely at a loss what GBE is for.
 
southshore said:
Nationalise the national grid, invest in it so that it’s for purpose,
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In what sense is it not "for purpose"?

What makes you think that Mad Ed would be any better at running it than the existing owners?


southshore said:
then buy the power from the generators at a reasonable price. (It’s not as if they can sell it anywhere else)
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It's not as if they have to generate it in the first place either, and, for the avoidance of doubt, if the government's paying less than it costs to generate, they won't.

Also, with renewables, they're mostly on CFD's, so the government has to either pay what they agreed to pay, or rip up the contracts and forget any hope of ever having any private sector involvement in this area ever again.
 
Lost Seasider said:
In what sense is it not "for purpose"?

What makes you think that Mad Ed would be any better at running it than the existing owners?



It's not as if they have to generate it in the first place either, and, for the avoidance of doubt, if the government's paying less than it costs to generate, they won't.

Also, with renewables, they're mostly on CFD's, so the government has to either pay what they agreed to pay, or rip up the contracts and forget any hope of ever having any private sector involvement in this area ever again.
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Should have put ‘fit for purpose’ although in context that was pretty obvious. It’s not fit for purpose when surplus power in Scotland cannot be sent into England due to lack of capacity in the network.

I didn’t say the government should pay less than cost, obviously if it did the generators would go broke, but they would be operating for the benefit of consumers rather than shareholders.
 
southshore said:
It’s not fit for purpose when surplus power in Scotland cannot be sent into England due to lack of capacity in the network.
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If anything, that's an argument against government involvement in the energy sector.

It's the government that's authorized projects, that only work because of government subsidies, before anyone has had the chance to build the £5+ billion 10-year infrastructure projects to support them.


southshore said:
I didn’t say the government should pay less than cost, obviously if it did the generators would go broke, but they would be operating for the benefit of consumers rather than shareholders.
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They'd be operating for the benefit of the government, that's not the same thing.

Also, any marginal savings from "shareholders", would easily get wiped out by the usual government inefficiencies, such as wasting £8bn on a totally pointless energy company, or however many tens of billions on HS2, for the sake of politics.

Finally, if it was in the public sector, it'd be behind the NHS, schools, and likely several others in the queue for funding, so the two major projects needed to move the electricity from Scotland to England would likely get shifted into the 2030s and beyond, if they're ever built at all.
 
Lost Seasider said:
Has anyone worked out what it's supposed to do with its £8bn yet?

Invest in energy projects that no-one else would touch with a bargepole?

Bail out Thurrock Council for the £500 million they lost investing in exactly this sort of energy scams.

Recruit a staff of thousands with nothing to do except write DEI policies and worry about their pronouns?

I am genuinely at a loss what GBE is for.
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Its very clear what its going to do with its 8 billion pounds, it says in black and white; Powering Britain with clean energy, investing in local communities and creating jobs and strengthening supply chains.



Just the website with its bland and vague intentions is good evidence that government should not be running businesses. 8 billion pounds is enough for almost a million homes to get 90% of their power from roof installed solar and give each of those homes two to three days battery storage.

you could build a dozen medium sized solar panel production plants, and get the current industry leading british companies in sodium ion battery technology up to full scale production and building their tech up to and beyond lithium ion tech. Then provide financing for small companies for installation, maybe set up as co-operatives so workers are actually benefitting from their labours.

By the end of this administration you could have two to three million homes that are 90% running on sustainable energy and at the same time create around 20-25,000 actual productive jobs. That 8 billion would be recycled into the economy.

Apparently its costing 25 million pounds to set the company up, with a further 100 million immediately available for capital expenditure, In what no-one can say.
 
Costero Poderoso said:
Its very clear what its going to do with its 8 billion pounds, it says in black and white; Powering Britain with clean energy, investing in local communities and creating jobs and strengthening supply chains.



Just the website with its bland and vague intentions is good evidence that government should not be running businesses. 8 billion pounds is enough for almost a million homes to get 90% of their power from roof installed solar and give each of those homes two to three days battery storage.

you could build a dozen medium sized solar panel production plants, and get the current industry leading british companies in sodium ion battery technology up to full scale production and building their tech up to and beyond lithium ion tech. Then provide financing for small companies for installation, maybe set up as co-operatives so workers are actually benefitting from their labours.

By the end of this administration you could have two to three million homes that are 90% running on sustainable energy and at the same time create around 20-25,000 actual productive jobs. That 8 billion would be recycled into the economy.
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Missed the sarcasm in the first paragraph at first.

Costero Poderoso said:
Apparently its costing 25 million pounds to set the company up,
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I could do that for £50 (Companies House fee) plus a couple of pints.

Beyond that, where's the money going?

Okay, you probably need to hire a handful of people to work out what the company is for and maybe develop some initial plans, but you could base them in some serviced offices and it'd cost what? £250,000 - £500,000 for the first year, and if they haven't got anything concrete after that, then what's the point of the company?

Looks like they're trying to set up a FTSE 100 size operation, with a board of directors, a management structure, corporate policies etc, without any idea what sort of operation they're supposed to be.

Pure waste.
 
Lost Seasider said:
If anything, that's an argument against government involvement in the energy sector.

It's the government that's authorized projects, that only work because of government subsidies, before anyone has had the chance to build the £5+ billion 10-year infrastructure projects to support them.



They'd be operating for the benefit of the government, that's not the same thing.

Also, any marginal savings from "shareholders", would easily get wiped out by the usual government inefficiencies, such as wasting £8bn on a totally pointless energy company, or however many tens of billions on HS2, for the sake of politics.

Finally, if it was in the public sector, it'd be behind the NHS, schools, and likely several others in the queue for funding, so the two major projects needed to move the electricity from Scotland to England would likely get shifted into the 2030s and beyond, if they're ever built at all.
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Well it’s not working in the private sector so what’s your suggestion?
 
Lala said:
This is probably my naivety now, but why can’t we re-nationalise energy, cut out the shareholders, and therefore keep consumer prices down ?
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Starmer believes it would be massively expensive to renationalise energy. But, as others have noted, it isn't a legal requirement to to compensate the current owners at market value.

For what it's worth, I'd start with rail - progressively, as the contracts end - and commensurate take back water & sewerage. Later, I would take back gas and electric and IT networking. I wouldn't nationalise telephony or IT retail.
 
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