Gavin Williamson’s warning that the Russian Bear is sizing up the UK’s energy infrastructure is important as it brings long overdue attention to a troubling drift in UK energy policy.
Britain’s electricity market is increasingly slanted in favour of importing more electricity from Europe and against securing investment in new power plants at home. Billions of pounds of domestic energy plant investment have consequently been put at risk, which will undermine the future security of supply and risk price rises.
It is important to appreciate our growing reliance on imported electricity, as well as the fact that current planning will quadruple this dependency with consequences for prices, competition and security of supply. A new Centre for Policy Studies paper, ‘The Hidden Wiring’, follows months of research into proposals for more undersea cables to import electricity, called interconnectors, and details their negative impact on Britain’s electricity market.
Power imports from Europe increased by 52 per cent in the three years to 2016, and they are set to surge as more interconnectors are planned.
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