Rejoice comrades! Net Zero Clean Energy is deliverable(ish)

Just as the US election grabbed all of the media attention (and subsequent tears and tantrums) ukelele-wielding, bug-eyed acolyte of Saint Greta Mad Ed Miliband announced with great glee that his plans to deliver us from our servitude to fossil fuels (in order to secure our economic prosperity, deliver cheap energy to all and, by the way, save the entire planet) had been reviewed by an independent expert body and given the seal of approval.

There you go then – an independent group of experts has confirmed that we can transition to a “clean energy” future within the next six years.  Super.

I decided to take a look at the trumpeted report and this is what I found after skimming through it and zooming in on what were, for me, the obvious bits.  Anyone who wants to read the whole thing (which I haven’t done) can find it here:

Clean Power 2030 – DOWNLOAD LINK

About the report – “Clean Power 2030.  Advice on achieving clean power for Great Britain by 2030”

The report is the work of a new body (the National Energy Systems Operator or “NESO”) set up by Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero.  A quick look at the Companies House website shows that this “independent” body has a small number of Directors and only one “Person with Significant Control” (a defined term in the world of auditing).  That person is, drum roll please (triangle optional) …. Ed Miliband.

So three key things before we even open the front page – firstly, this is not an independent report under any definition I’m aware of; secondly, it excludes Northern Ireland entirely (I wonder why that is?); and, thirdly, we are no longer intending to get to Net Zero by 2030, we are now getting to “Clean Energy” by then.  This is defined as us still using gas but it “should” produce less than 5% of our power in a “typical weather year” (whatever one of those is!)

The final point before we get into it – as someone who has worked as a management consultant for two of the “Big 4” firms (one of them twice) I am in no doubt that the expensive pen of the consultant was used to produce this report.  The overall structure, the style of language used and, importantly, the amount of risk mitigating wording (arse covering to you and I) are dead giveaways.

The sunny uplands of the Foreword and the Executive Summary

Right up front is where you stick your big positive messages.  This doesn’t get off to a great start as the first thing we get told is that “Earlier this year, the electricity system was run at 95% zero carbon for a short period of time”.  Presumably for three seconds on a breezy and sunny day when everyone was outside cooking a BBQ, but that’s the best they’ve got in terms of positive messages.

The first bit of arse covering follows quickly – “our advice to the Government indicates that to achieve clean power by 2030, a once in a generation shift in approach and in the pace of delivery is required “.  This is consulting speak for “What you want to achieve is theoretically possible but it’s never been done before and more than one big thing has to change completely in order for it to be done this time”.

These are a few of the highlights from the “Key Messages” section of the Foreword:

• “Several elements must deliver at the limit of what is feasible: a key challenge will be making sure all deliver simultaneously, in full and at maximum pace, in a way that does not overheat supply chains, is sustainable and sets Great Britain on the right path beyond 2030.” This is a polite way of saying that a house of cards is being built and one innocent puff of wind (unaware of the concept of irony) will collapse the whole thing
• We need to “Deliver first-of-a-kind clean dispatchable technologies, such as carbon capture and storage and hydrogen to power”. In other words, the entire outcome is dependent on stuff being invented that doesn’t yet exist or stuff that exists but only in the lab being built affordably at scale within the next six years
• In terms of the national grid, we have to build “twice as much in the next five years as was built in total over the last decade”. It doesn’t get mentioned in the report but we can no longer make the steel needed for the pylons required in the UK and we would also need to build a factory to produce the electric cables required as there isn’t enough spare manufacturing capacity in the rest of the world
• Have a sit down and a cup of tea before you try to parse this sentence. We need to “Consolidate isolated and siloed digitalisation initiatives into a unified sector-wide prioritised plan, with expedited data sharing and enhanced decision-making driven through rapid adoption of artificial intelligence” (“Park life”).  In plain English this means that we have to get lots of organisations who have no incentive to cooperate to come together and agree things like a single definition of what a “customer” is and after that to openly share data with each other so that the magic wand of AI can be waved over it to do some stuff that AI might not even be able to do.

The Executive Summary runs to six pages so I’m going to be brutal in pruning my criticisms and observations down.

• We start with a somewhat chilling comment that the government can only deliver “by prioritising pace over perfection”. This is basically a licence to do things badly. Give planning consent for a massive solar farm in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty?  Sorry, but I was prioritising pace over perfection mate.
• “Investment” averaging £40bn per annum is required, but worry not, “with the right policy mix” this can be done without increasing costs to consumers. Given that many consumers will be taxpayers I’m doubting the accuracy of that statement
• Offshore wind needs to produce over 50% of the electricity we need, with onshore wind and solar producing a further 29%. Still nights will be interesting (I may buy shares in candle manufacturers)
• At least there is a frank statement in there – “Failure in any single area – generation, flexibility, networks – will lead to failure overall; all parts need to deliver to achieve clean power”. Failure in at least some parts of a large government-run project is pretty much guaranteed (pick your own favourite – HS2, Scottish ferries, aircraft carriers?) so this alone tells you that there is a gaping hole below the water line
• The report contradicts itself. The overall success of this endeavour is heavily dependent on technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and batteries to store excess electricity to cover periods when the sun don’t shine and the wind don’t blow.  The summary reassures us that “the technologies are available at reasonable cost” yet the detail states that “Progress on new technologies, such as carbon capture and hydrogen, is also essential for decarbonising the wider economy” and that CCS and hydrogen are “currently under-developed technologies“.  There is a lovely statement that “CCS and hydrogen are first-of-a-kind projects for Great Britain and previous attempts have not progressed to delivery”.  Read “not progressed to delivery” as “were dismal failures which cost a bundle and over-ran by years before crashing and burning” and you won’t be far wrong
• You and I all need to change our behaviour as every “pathway” to clean energy involves “early electrification of heat, transport and industry” so get that heat pump whirring and that EV charged up. On that note, buried in the detail is the expectation that electricity can be provided to the grid from your EV when wind and solar aren’t producing enough, which will be fun if you went to bed thinking you were setting off in the morning on a full charge
• This is by no means a fully-costed plan. There is an acceptance that all of our current gas plants will need to be retained for when they are needed and “Appropriate arrangements will need to be in place to ensure these plants remain open”.  I wonder what “Appropriate arrangements” equates to in terms of pound notes?
• Time for some interpretation again. When you see “Acute supply chain and workforce challenges must be overcome across nearly all generation, storage and network projects”, this means “we don’t have the materials and people we need so we’re just going to assume that somehow we’ll get them as this isn’t our problem”
• Jobs for the boys (other genders are available) is a must – “NESO will play a central role in delivering clean power”
• “coordinated partnership between the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments” is needed as, guess what, the Scottish and Welsh governments already have their own plans, which they will need to drop in favour of this one
• NESO has thrown Mad Ed under the bus with this comment – “How costs translate to customers’ electricity bills will depend on policy design and market dynamics that we do not attempt to predict in this report”

The shadowy valleys of the details

These are a few of the gems which jumped off the page to me in the remaining 72 pages of the report:

• There is some very sneaky number wrangling going on. Emissions from plants which produce both heat and power aren’t counted as they are classified as being in the “industry” sector and not the “power” sector.  Similarly, waste to power plants are stuck into the “waste” sector
• NESO doesn’t know where in the country the things essential to this plan will actually be as they only started to create the “Strategic Spatial Energy Plan” in October this year. In that case, how do they even know, for example, how much new cable we need for grid expansion?
• We will be wholly dependent on being able to get electricity from other countries. The expected supply needed is 50GW from offshore wind, 27GW from onshore wind and 47GW from solar – a total of 124GW. Battery storage is expected to reach 22GW so if gas only provides 5% (6GW) then we have a gap of 96GW on a cloudy, cold, still day when there is something good on the telly and people fancy a brew
• “price signals need to reflect the system value and incentivise a shift from business-as-usual activity”. Another  terrific bit of consulting speak.  Read this as “People need to get used to turning stuff off when the price goes up”
• Time is already running/has run out. The report states that construction needs to start on “many projects” in the next 6 – 24 months but also tells us that the timescale for planning is currently 21 months for offshore wind and 35 months for onshore wind.  I think we’re going to see Mad Ed issuing a lot of “Executive Approvals” pretty soon
• More sneaky semantics re. building the grid out. The purported good news is that there are already a greater number of “connections” projects in the queue than required.  We are also told that not all of these projects are ready to proceed and some won’t deliver until after 2030 anyway.  Literally in the small print of a footnote, “ready” is defined as a project having “secured appropriate land rights in order to receive a confirmed connection offer”.  Those of you still awake and paying attention will recall that we don’t yet know where stuff is going to be, so how can land rights be secured?
• We need 100,000 new skilled people just for the offshore wind build. The report recognises that “Securing engineers, digital specialists and construction workers is increasingly difficult due to the high demand for these skills across the economy, both domestically and globally”  The solution to this “may depend on “buying in” … skills in the near term”.  I hope there are more engineers on the dinghies than we think there are
• It appears that there are also “significant obstacles to accessing Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) supply chains, parts and materials coupled with limited domestic manufacturing and ports capacity.”. At first I assumed “ports” was a typo for “parts” but given the volume of materials needed maybe it isn’t.  Looks like we will be trying to buy in-demand materials, parts and components in the global market.  I wonder if there will be enough to go round and, if so, at what price?
• Artificial Intelligence to the rescue – “One essential technology area is a strategic shift towards responsible AI for better decision making in energy planning, supply chain optimisation, market and domestic flexibility and forecasting”
• It looks like significant IT-driven change is required across the whole of the power sector, encompassing both private and public sector organisations. “Current digitalisation and innovation efforts are often siloed and lack supportive adoption policies and pathways to operational use, making it difficult to scale ideas. Additionally, the sector faces challenges with data quality, availability and sharing, which restrict opportunities to develop and test new solutions.”.  In my personal experience this is just not going to change to the extent required.  Not just by 2030, but ever.
• It ain’t gonna be pretty. 25GW of offshore wind will require 8,600km² of ocean, with 27GW of onshore needing 3,000km² of land, which is roughly 1% of the entire land area of Great Britain
• It ain’t gonna be cheap. The additional investment needed equates to 1% of GDP every year until 2030.  Again in the small print is a statement that all costs and prices are based on 2024 numbers with no account being taken of inflation (what self-respecting financial modeller does that?)
• One bit that actually made me laugh out loud was the estimate for the number of much-vaunted “Green Jobs” which will be created. This ranges from (wait for it) 4,000 to 192,000 jobs.  This margin for error does not inspire confidence in the rest of the plan
• The final nail in the coffin of credibility is a closing statement that we will become a net exporter of energy (though it is careful not to say just how much we will be exporting).

My personal prediction if the government tries to execute this plan (which I think they will) is that:

• It will take twice as long as expected to achieve half of the desired outcomes
• It will cost at least twice as much, with the burden falling on both consumers and taxpayers (with many people getting the double whammy of being both of those)
• No politician will lose their job
• A relatively small number of people will each make an obscene amount of money out of this
• An inquiry will be held from 2040 to 2045 (by candlelight for the evening sessions) which will conclude that lessons must be learned

We can but hope that the USA under Trump bins Net Zero completely and other European countries follow suit (Germany is probably the lead candidate there), leaving us so exposed that this becomes the major issue for the 2029 General Election or, hopefully, well before then.

In the meantime, if you plan to buy a wood burning stove then do it sooner rather than later and buy candles, a couple of rechargeable lanterns and a power bank.
 

© Northern Man 2025