A decision to consider closure by the operator of Scotland’s largest power station tells us
much about the way the so-called “National
Grid” is designed to serve the needs of the big English cities, rather than
the thinly populated “Celtic periphery”.
Scottish
Power, the operator of Longannet power station, has announced it will not be
bidding to connect to the grid in 2018. The reason? Even though Scotland
exports a large proportion of its electricity to the big centres of demand down
south, it also pays the highest transmission fees. Consequently, Scotland suffers
a double whammy – it loses the benefit of being able to profit from the export
of a valuable 21st century resource. And Scottish consumers pay
higher bills because they sit at the tail end of a network built to serve the
needs of over-populated, over-built England.
But as a
story highlighted in the “Western Mail”
last year shows, the same dynamic applies to Wales, too. For in October of last
year, the Mule pointed out that Welsh consumers pay the highest electricity
bills in the whole of the UK. Even higher than Scotland, in fact.
This is
despite the fact that Wales, much like its Celtic cousin up north, also exports
electricity. But this simple fact however obscures a more complex picture than
Scotland. Whereas history has bequeathed on our northern brethren a network
that treats them as a discrete entity, in Wales the network splits our country
in two. This split is readily acknowledged even by English companies with a
major stake in Wales, but the consequence is that whereas North Wales is a net
exporter of electricity - by a pretty comfy margin too - up until recently South
Wales actually had to import electricity from England. Hence the higher bills.
For Wales,
much like Scotland, this has a number of consequences. In the first instance, Welsh
consumers have less spending power because a greater proportion of income is
eaten up by fuel bills. In Wales, a country that exports electricity, a staggering
41% of households are now classed as in fuel poverty. And of course high bills
have consequences for business as well. As Miller Argent pointed out in their
submission above, high electricity prices hold back the Welsh economy in other ways,
as they affect Welsh competitiveness, particularly the manufacturing sector.
Since Miller
Argent’s submission, things have changed a little bit in South Wales. With the
construction of the massive Pembroke 1 power station, South Wales is now a net exporter of electricity to England too. Yet as National Grid’s own tariff charges
show, RWE, owners of the station, will be paying something on the order of £35 million a year to
export all that electricity down the line to Gloucester. Because of the iniquitous
way the Grid works, much of that cost will be shouldered by struggling Welsh
families, who are effectively subsidising their wealthier neighbours next door through their higher electricity bills.
Better
Together, I hear you say?
Of course,
Devolution of power consents came under the purview of the Silk Commission, set
up by the Tory Government to look at more powers for the Welsh. But as Gareth
Clubb, Director of Friends of the Earth, pointed out in a post earlier this
year, there was never really any intention to give Wales substantive powers
over consenting for large power stations. Wales has always had a slightly
unruly relationship with our bigger neighbour next door. We’re just too
unreliable to be trusted to plug England’s yawning energy gap.
As the
Commission itself put it:
“Wales is a net
exporter of electricity, and an energy strategy that focused on Wales would not
perhaps fulfil the needs of the wider United Kingdom, and England in
particular” (translation of Welsh language version of the Silk Commission Part
II report, section 8.2.13).
Say no more...
