Greater Manchester’s Environment Plan 2019–2024
Chapter 4: Our Energy Supply
An in-depth analysis of city region’s environment policy and where it falls short, presented in a series of 10 chapters related in the style of a fictional leader using language the crisis calls for #TellTheTruth
I hate to tell you this but the upheaval needed in your homes and other areas of your lives, will be irrelevant if the government does not crack on with dramatically overhauling how we supply and distribute electricity, and swap out natural gas.
The national electricity grid needs to change because of course we’re going to have all these millions of micro producers of electricity in the form of solar panels and turbines rather than a handful of massive power stations.
And we’re going to demand and distribute much more of it, and to many more outlet points, (like car chargers) because — bye bye dirty fuel and all that…
It does seem this is now front of mind — and the National Grid has now announced it will be able to be powered fully by renewables as soon as 2025.
But there is a lot that we still don’t know.
I said in the Environment Plan; ‘electricity is going to change to a Distributed System Operator model. But the roles and responsibilities of that DSO are still evolving’ — to put it more clearly: they haven’t really got a scooby how it’s all going to work yet even though the clock is already ticking.
4. And on gas — well we reeeeeally need the government to grasp the commitment made in the UK Climate Change Act to ‘decarbonise heat’ by 2050 (ie get rid of natural gas) — and now frankly far sooner.
5. Sadly — I’m told ‘these discussions have barely left Whitehall or academia’ — so we might have to go it alone up here for a bit.
Sorry to sound like a stuck record…. but hopefully that’ll change soon once the Brexit impasse is out the way and we have a government actually governing ..
So we all need to be ok with literally thousands of solar panels and hundreds of wind turbines across the region.
Maybe you think they don’t look great but we don’t really have a choice. Currently only 2.5% of our electricity in GM comes from renewable sources within the region’s boundary, which is half that of the national average and only a quarter of our estimated capacity, though our electicity appears to be lower carbon than most UK regions.
To be fair the UK has been making progress on this — phasing out coal and producing more from wind and solar to the point we’re producing about 30% from renewable sources at times — which is why it’s so disappointing two new coal mines in the North of England have just been approved — on the coasts of Cumbria and Northumberland.
It is also a shame that the subsidies and tariffs that were introduced in 2015 that helped get solar off the ground in the UK are now being withdrawn.
And of course there are vast untapped resources on wind, water and solar power still to harness, so there’s some catching up to do which will mean quite a lot of upheaval and unsightly skylines — but hey, don’t shoot the messenger and all that …
As you might have gathered — the amount of electricity we are going to need is going to hugely increase.
Luckily the guys at Electricity North West (ENWL) are on it… they’re predicting we’ll need three times as much electricity as now — and serve twice the peak flows of today.
That’s not just because we’ll all be using electric cars and electric heat pumps. But also because our population is forecast to grow by 250k and the number of houses we need by a similar number, by 2037.
You might well wonder if it is compatible with climate science to have a policy that sees us carry on increasing energy consumption — but just switch from fossil fuel to electric methods (which do ultimately have an impact on earth too) — there is no such thing as a free lunch and all that…
That is a fair question but not one anyone wants to really dwell on right now…but yes the truth is renewables are simply enabling MORE energy use, not replacing fossil fuels.
13. I’m not exactly sure why we’re not also looking at renewable energy from outside our boundary too, like Warrington,… given the demand we’ll have… ‘note to self’ to look into that…no hang on — that’s not my job .. or is it?
14. I know that there was an expectation in some quarters, I’d be announcing a new, publicly-owned municipal energy company for the region, given the plans drawn up for last year’s summit and the research showing GM’s public sector spent more than £75m over energy bills.
15. This would have enabled us to tackle these energy challenges on our own terms and without needing to pay shareholders, instead investing surpluses back into these public energy services.
16. But — sorry to the Carbon Coop, and others, who’d helped draw it up and thought it was a good idea.
We aren’t going to do that.
I’m not sure why?
This page is part of a series critiquing and presenting the Greater Manchester Environment Plan, in the style of fictional leader Sandy Turnham.
All measures and facts and descriptions are accurate as far as my understanding but some artistic licence has been taken with tone in order to #TellTheTruth.
3. Our homes and the energy we use
5. Our cars and how we get around
7. Our food and the waste we create
8. Our businesses and their responsibility
