Paul Homewood has once again published an important article regarding the astronomical costs of further upgrades planned for the UK’s transmission network only.
These upgrades have been deemed necessary in order to fulfil the government’s political “net zero” agenda which has absolutely nothing to do with allegedly saving the planet. What it will accomplish is pushing even more people into fuel poverty and potentially, early death*.
The UK’s electricity network needs almost a further £60bn of upgrades to hit government decarbonisation targets by 2035, according to a new plan.
Some 4,000 miles of undersea cables and 1,000 miles of power lines including pylons are needed, National Grid’s Electricity Systems Operator said.
The investment would add between £20 to £30 a year to customer bills, it said.
The government said the ESO’s plans were preliminary and yet to pass a "robust planning process".
The plans were written up by the ESO, the organisation which runs the electricity network and would run the updated system it is calling for too. It is currently owned by National Grid but will transfer into government ownership later this year.
Its latest £58bn estimate is for work needed between 2030 and 2035 and comes on top of a previous £54bn estimate for work taking place between now and 2030.
The additional infrastructure spend would help get the UK’s offshore wind from where it is produced out at sea, to where it is used by households across the country.
That would be key in making greener energy, according to the ESO, which said the project would be the largest build of its kind for seven decades.
The government said the plans would support more than 20,000 jobs, but these are preliminary ones that would have to go through a robust planning process – a stage at which many infrastructure plans have failed.
The ESO says this is the kind of ambitious plan needed to deliver clean, secure, decarbonised energy. It called for "swift and co-ordinated" progress, and said that without it, the country’s climate ambitions might be at risk.
"Great Britain is about to embark upon the biggest change to the electricity network since the high voltage transmission grid was established back in the 1950s," it said.
New connections and more grid capacity will also be needed as people and companies switch to using electricity for their cars or heating their homes. Renewable forms of generating energy, including through solar and wind farms, will also change the way the grid is shaped.
The undersea cables will have to come ashore at various points, predominantly on the east coast of Scotland and England – and from there, on to places near urban centres via overhead pylons or at four times the cost, under the ground. Hot spots for the new pylons include West Wales and a route through East Anglia.
Speaking to the BBC, Jake Rigg, corporate affairs director at the ESO, said conversation with communities across the UK is ongoing.
Critics have said the plan would deface areas of outstanding national beauty by adding more pylons – the huge steel structures which have been accused of blighting landscapes.
Including the cost of £54 billion already committed, this adds up to a gobsmacking £112 billion, a cost of over £4000 per household. The claim that bills will only rise by £20 a year clearly is a lie. Even if the cost is spread out over 20 years, it still amounts to £200 a year, and interest payments will drastically increase this. It is a sign of the times that we discuss these ludicrous amounts of money without batting an eyelid.
As we know with all public infrastructure projects, the eventual cost will be much more than budgeted. It is worth noting that the government decided to take the ESO into public ownership precisely because the National Grid and other owners of the transmission network demanded full compensation for these upgrades, which would increase electricity bills to an unacceptable degree. Instead the government will have to fund any overspend. And the full cost will simply be added to the already crippling National Debt.
I would emphasise that this project is solely concerned with the transmission network, and does not cover the distribution network, which will also require tens of billions to increase capacity to cope with increased demand.
The National Grid’s Beyond 2030 plan clearly states that the upgrade’s only purpose is to build more capacity to:
1) Transmit power from offshore windfarms and other renewable generators, and carry it to where it will be used.
2) Cope with increased demand for electricity, due to electric cars, heat pumps etc.
In short, this £112 billion needs to be spent in order to meet Net Zero objectives, and no other reason.
The report also claims that thousands of jobs will be created and GDP increased. This is the same tired old argument often wheeled out, and it ignores the fact that money spent on this will be diverted from other purposes.
But above all, the bill for this upgrade surely nails the lie for once and for all, that wind power is cheap.
Contracts have been awarded to offshore wind farms on the basis of their strike prices, when the true cost is in fact much greater. The government should never have agreed to the investment of tens of billions in wind farms without taking into account the full costs involved.
*There is data to support the reality that increased electric bills will push people into fuel poverty and potential early death. I included the following information in my objection to the Welsh Government’s “Renewable Energy Consultation” last April 2023.
I completely disagree with the Welsh Government’s proposal 3 target “to meet the equivalent of 100% of our annual electricity consumption from renewable energy by 2035.” This will push a large portion of the population of Wales – who are already seriously challenged with paying their bills and heating their homes – more deeply into fuel poverty with the attendant social, mental and health impacts which this entails, including potential death.
According to the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, “The definition of fuel poverty is if a household spends more than 10% of its income on fuel costs and if the remaining household income is insufficient to maintain an adequate standard of living.”
This has most certainly been the situation here in the UK especially during the last year and half or so as fuel and food prices have skyrocketed.
· Over half of low-income households are still living in energy-leaking homes, with campaigners warning the rate of improvements is well below what is needed to lift people out of fuel poverty by a target date of 2030.
· 1.8 million carers, 5.9 million low-income and financially vulnerable households, 3.6 million people with a disability and 1.6 million households in off-gas homes will all be in fuel poverty from April 2023 (NEA).
· Over 9 million adults lived in cold damp homes in December 2023 (Warm This Winter) which contributed to worsening public health and pressures on the NHS.
Energy bills
Average household energy bills have been increasing since a low in 2020.
Bills are currently 140% more expensive than in winter 2020/21.
Bills from 1 July 2023 will be 106% more expensive than in winter 2020/21.
The huge cost of upgrading the transmission network in addition to the distribution network – the costs for which are as yet unannounced – are in addition to the subsidies to industrial wind and solar developers sand operators which are paid for by we consumers.
As Dr. John Constable eloquently states in his prescient presentations, unreliable, intermittent “renewable” wind and solar “are thermodynamically inferior” and cannot maintain let alone progress modern societies.
