Culling at Culham
The Written Parliamentary Answer from the Department of Energy published in Hansard does look stupefyingly boring, listing as it blandly does several columns of anticipated expenditure during each year of this Parliament. But actually it reveals some quite extraordinary plans for future profligate public spending between 2015 and 2020.
The original Question, from the SNP’s Alan Brown, concerned planned spending on nuclear fusion. For decades Her Majesty’s Government has been funding trials for nuclear fusion under the JET programme at Culham, Oxfordshire. To date, whilst it may have provided lucrative employment for many physicists, this has produced not one single kilowatt-hour of useful electricity (whilst consuming a lot of power itself during the research process).
Effectively this Parliamentary Answer reveals we the taxpayers will be forking out at least £45m during this Parliament towards trying to close down this moribund facility. Think how many older peoples’ homes could be insulated with that money. Except that this government no longer has any dedicated programme (in England at any rate) to deliver such lagging for old lags.
Turning Amber to green
Since the May election, the official justification given by Conservative Ministers for their concerted campaign cutting back existing programmes designed to assist renewable electricity, is always the same. The nation is set to breach the official Levy Control Framework. This Framework has a maximum total budget of £7.6bn (at 2012 prices) to 2020/1 to underwrite low carbon fuels.
As the name suggests, this sum refers not to public expenditure, but to levies placed upon consumer electricity bills for green reasons. Immediately after the election, the Conservative-aligned pressure group Policy Exchange analysed existing plans. And announced that the Levy would be seriously overspent, unless relevant project expenditure was seriously reduced. The new Secretary of State, ‘Forever’ Amber Rudd, bought the argument hook, line and sinker. And has subsequently set about reducing the various renewables programmes with a vengeance.
Policy Exchange’s calculations were theoretically accurate. But they relied upon one fundamental presumption. It is that all the projects approved under the related Contracts for Difference auction will indeed be built. I understand that there are those amongst ‘Forever’’s staff at the Department of Climate Change, who have been recalculating whether or not there has been any attrition amongst those projects previously anticipated to proceed. And have found that, rather than over-spending, the likelihood is now that by 2020 the Framework will be substantially less than the agreed £7.6bn. I challenge these public servants to publish these recalculations. Even if ‘Forever’’s scorched earth policy is damned in the process.
Breaking the laws of man and meter
As far as the Big Six electricity companies are concerned, the main justification for the mandated £14bn roll out of smart meters to every consumer is to enable accurate consumption billing. As 90% of complaints about energy firms to the Ombudsman relate to disputed charges from inaccurate invoices, you can see why this obligation might have considerable appeal.
So how come the regulator Ofgem had to read the riot act to all six for their failure to meet agreed deadlines? These were set originally over six years ago, to install smart electric meters – some 155,000 in total – in all the premises of their business customers. In practice, despite much chivvying, less than three-quarters of them have been installed.
Unusually OFGEM has shown some teeth. It has fined Eon £7m immediately, with a threat to double that if the job isn’t completed within 12 months – and then to ban them from acquiring any new business customers. And both NPower and British Gas have been publicly admonished for their lack of effort, with threats of similar fines.
The £7m fine has not been pocketed by Ofgem. Instead it appears to have been handed over in its entirety to the Carbon Trust, to provide free energy surveys for companies across Britain.
The need for such surveys has become obvious, as it has been revealed than the less than 10% of those companies, required under the Government’s new Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme to obtain such audits at their own expense, had actually done so by the official deadline of December 5.
But quite what hoops the Carbon Trust has jumped through to become the sole administrator of this £7m fund remains a mystery. Whilst undoubtedly the CT was founded in 2001 as the official national energy agency, ever since 2010 it has had absolutely no pseudo-governmental role, and operates now as a standard consultancy. Surely OFGEM were not confused as to the Carbon Trust’s status? I do not know the answer. But I do think we should be told.
Morton’s Fork
Let us just put into perspective the £24bn current anticipated cost of £24bn (and rising) for that white elephant Hinckley Point C. It is now thirty years since the Channel Tunnel was built. The official capital out-turn figure for completing that amazing feat of engineering on time was £4.65 bn. That is the equivalent of £12.58bn at current prices.
All of this money was raised from the private sector by the late and very lamented Sir Alistair Morton, with not a penny of subsidy from the public purse. And not a hint of loan guarantees to anybody, let alone the ever-so Democratic Republic of China.
