The logical argument

The logical argument for swapping fossil fuel powered boilers for solar panels, heat pumps and other green home energy devices has long been won.

After all, who wouldn’t want affordable, sustainable power that doesn’t leave the UK at the mercy of a foreign power supplier? Or pose an existential threat to the human race?

The practical side of the argument, ensuring homes can actually afford the switch to replacing oil, gas and coal, is a challenge that is gradually being overcome. Subsidies now on offer for heat pumps for example can make them cost neutral.

It’s projected that within 20 years the vast majority of homes and businesses will run on green energy devices but to receive the electricity from the National Grid to power them will require a vast increase in current Grid capacity.

The Great Grid Upgrade outlines how to meet that need. It is the largest overhaul of the grid in generations, with new infrastructure across England and Wales bringing ashore power generated from offshore turbines and supplying it to consumers, helping the UK meet its net zero ambitions,

So far so good, however mapping out powerlines and substations on paper is one thing – doing it across vast swathes of the Great British countryside is an entirely different matter.

If only the UK had experience of delivering a major national infrastructure upgrade that entailed construction work across hundreds of miles of land.

Ah yes…HS2.

A new electric train line from London to Birmingham and then on to the Northern powerhouses of Leeds and Manchester. Looked great on paper but England’s consultation and planning laws gave ample opportunity for challenge virtually every step of the way.

These planning costs, alongside property compensation as well as the actual cost in terms of materials and wages meant it would have cost eight times as much to build HS2 in the UK than it would in other European countries.

A price the PM deemed too high to pay. The Leeds spur was axed two years ago, Manchester followed this year.

The National Grid plans will impact many parts of the country. It’s not technology or even cost that poses the greatest challenge to these mega-plans – it’s winning public and by implication political support.

In his Autumn statement last week, Jeremy Hunt pledged homes affected by the Great Grid Upgrade could claim £1,000 a year for ten years in compensation.

Time will tell what the public reaction to this will be but if the Government doesn’t want Grid transformation to turn into HS2 déjà vu it needs to ensure winning the hearts and minds of the people who will be most affected is put front and centre and ensuring the messages about why this is so important is made absolutely clear.

And with more people switching to renewable energy or driving electric cars, hopefully this will be an easier ‘sell’. Time will obviously tell but as one of the UK’s leading suppliers of heat pumps and other renewable energy technology, we are certainly well placed when it comes to meeting the demand for products with that extra spark!