Great British Energy and the Government's green agenda

Great British Energy will be a publicly owned energy company. Devised by the UK Labour Government, it’s designed to drive clean energy deployment, boost energy independence – known as energy patriotism, create jobs and “ensure UK taxpayers, billpayers and communities reap the benefits of clean, secure, home-grown energy,” according to the Government website.

The Government has proposals and projects with investments totalling around £7.3 billion so far.

“Setting up Great British Energy is one of government’s first steps for change and we will do this in a way that means it will have both an early impact and long-term success.”

Sir Keir and his cabinet have a lot of initiatives on tackling climate change and improving the environment. After fourteen years of Conservative rule in the UK, there are plenty of changes afoot with Labour in power.

More changes happening

There’s a lot in this government’s agenda that goes a long way to protecting the environment and getting us closer to Net Zero.

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves has pledged to make the UK a leader in green technology saying she wants to “start getting money out of the door“.

The Government has proposals and projects ranging from green steel and hydrogen to capturing carbon, with investments totalling around £7.3 billion so far through a national wealth fund.

They’ve pledged to decarbonise electricity by 2030 and make the UK a clean energy superpower too. To help this they appointed Chris Stark – formerly leader of the Climate Change Committee, as the Head of Mission Control for Clean Power.

They’ve also lifted the ban on onshore windfarms and a wind turbine was approved in East Riding of Yorkshire within days of them taking power and another in Cornwall.

They consented to three solar parks with combined capacity of 1.35 GW (very big) as part of their new solar for energy security plan and unveiled plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels to reduce energy bills and tackle the climate crisis.

Helping others

Warmer homes are a huge priority as cold, damp and mouldy homes are a real health risk for millions of people.

The new government have promised around £13 billion to help, while that’s less than the amount needed for all homes the hope is that the money they spend will focus on the most vulnerable who need support most.

Landlords will have to improve the quality of houses as well to achieve a rating of an EPC of C or higher before they can rent their property out, which will help lower energy bills and improve the health for those living in the private rented sector.

Heat pump roll out

Heat pumps are the future for home heating as they are more three times more efficient than a gas or oil burner and don’t rely on polluting fossil fuels. However, at the time of writing, the government is yet to commit to an end date for gas boilers or ruling out hydrogen for home heating.

When they do this then some big corporates who are currently delaying roll outs as they wish to continue to profit from polluting our planet, will get fully on board and heat pump uptake will rapidly increase.

Currently one per cent of UK homes have heat pumps but this figure will continue to climb over coming years just as electric vehicles went from being tiny share of car sales to now one of the biggest contributors to monthly stats of new vehicles on the road.

Food, travel and air pollution policies

When it comes to travel, renationalising the rail network as franchises come up is on the tracks and they’ve pledged to allow communities to take control of their local bus services too.

They’re stopping new licenses for oil and gas in the North sea but aren’t removing existing licenses. The IEA has said we already have enough reserves and don’t need new wells.

They plan to develop a food strategy with 2024 yielding some of the worst harvests since World War Two and they’ve also promised to clean up the waterways putting water companies into “special measures” – a strong premise considering just prior to the election Thames Water admitted it was a “risk to public safety.”

They’re also planning to tackle air pollution – allowing only electric vehicles to be bought by 2030 while looking at air pollution from farming and wood burning stoves too.

There’s a lot in this government’s agenda that goes a long way to protecting the environment and getting us closer to Net Zero so positive change is already happening.

Finally if you use X @Ed_Miliband is the account for the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero and whoever is his social media manager is doing an amazing job at making his content engaging.

I look forward to tracking progress particularly ensuring lower energy bills for homes and businesses.

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