UK Electrification – what needs rewiring?

Tyranny, delusion, incompetence, folly. These were the four modes of misgovernment articulated by the great American historian Barbara Tuchman.

The first three manifest themselves in the abuse of monopoly power, utopian targets, and stifling bureaucracy. The fourth, folly, is the paradoxical situation where governments pursue policies that run contrary to their own interests. To clear the high-water mark for a government policy to be pure folly, it must be ‘wooden headed’ – impervious to accumulating negative evidence of its effects. Moreover, its architects must be ‘blind’ – an alternative but ignored action must be available that could promote the desired goal.

In short, facts do not deflect folly. Instead, groupthink, ideology, vested interests, or downright sovereign pride sustain it. And, as Tuchman soberly reminds us:

“Folly’s appearance is independent of era or locality; it is timeless and universal.”

With that health warning, UK energy is an increasingly contested area of government policy. Older arguments on ownership, industry structure, and corporate conduct are resurfacing. Debates continue about the use of fossil fuels and the best debt/equity financing. Now, a more recent development is that greater devolution is also on the agenda.

What is going on?

A structural driver is the need to rebuild our ageing energy system. Originally designed for an increasingly dim and distant world, the new system is powering not just lighting, transport, and heat, but our digital economy as well.

Additionally, the boundary of the energy system has moved to embrace the biosphere, a new conundrum that past generations could duck, leaving a huge liability to us in the process. Any rebuild should restore and conserve nature. Destroy that, and the evolutionary torch flickers out.

Electrification is a material part of the answer. But it is neither cheap nor easy.

The task involves an awful lot more than just ensuring there are enough renewable megawatts available, whatever the weather. An expanding electricity grid creates many added operability challenges to meet the new demands that will be put on it.

How might we best move forward?

To avoid folly in this daunting new adventure, some evidence is helpful.

Across the UK and Europe, we find a spectrum of ownership structures in energy, from purely private to state models, and many hybrids. We see niche innovators and local players co-existing with large vertically integrated international groups. The topology changes over time, within and across countries. And even though the failures often grab the headlines, examples of successes are common.

An evolving web, not a fixed machine.

So, we should start by acknowledging that there is no such thing as a static, gilt-edged, energy system blueprint. There never will be. Risk free is the territory of theoretical models, not the real energy terrain.

With that proviso, there are surely opportunities for devolution via community energy schemes which can give increased citizen participation and improved outcomes. That part of Manchesterism resonates, although relevant projects span both cities and villages. Projects can bridge archaic political silos, replacing them with public/private collaboration. Read: Community energy – filling the power vacuum

However, we should not forget the wisdom of Tuchman.

Greater ‘distributed energy’ within the system should not blind us to the threats from the abuse of monopoly power, delusionary visions, administrative bungling, red tape and pure folly. All can lurk within regional or local structures, not just national ones.

And the more we devolve, the greater the risk of a failure to join the dots – not learning from other regions nor seeing benefits that flow from system integration.

Beyond devolution, what about the old chestnuts of ownership, control, and conduct?

Demoting ideology, the longer-term evidence suggests we should concentrate on the facilitators of change – a flow of money and ideas – rather than grasping a particular structural template.

·      Finance: Any energy transition will cost a lot of money. That will require substantial private capital even in countries or regions where the state keeps a direct role. The guiding principle to encourage the flow must be to ensure trust between public and private sectors. A clear framework for the independent economic regulation of natural monopolies, and transparent market signals elsewhere, are the surest foundations. They are powerful antidotes to folly.

·      Innovation. During the Industrial Revolution, important discoveries about heat and energy came from British scientists and entrepreneurs working in cities such as Manchester and Glasgow, both at the heart of industrialisation. Today, we still need vibrant collaboration between academia and industry to underpin innovation and discovery. These are the catalysts to productivity growth in energy and beyond and improve our evolutionary odds.

So, in finance and in innovation, ‘both/and’, not ‘either/or’ thinking has much to recommend it to public and private sectors.

Collaboration not confrontation.

Rewiring our political thinking can underpin a sustainable new energy system…and possibly leave a handsome legacy for the future along with it.

A worthwhile prize.

But to claim it, the real rewiring we need lies as much in our heads as it does on pylons.

Suggested summer reading:

Barbara Tuchman: The March of Folly. From Troy to Vietnam. Abacus (1990).

Harold Hutchinson & George Yarrow: To ‘see’ or not to ‘see’ – that is the question. Moving on from a half-brained system of economic governance. Regulatory Policy Institute (2023).

Dieter Helm: Climate Realism. Facing the Facts about Energy. Cambridge (2026 forthcoming).