Security is mortal’s chiefest enemy
Is every single British electricity-generating company now employing cyber security experts? I understand American power companies are now under constant, accelerating attack, either from on line troublemakers. Or (more often) from state-sponsored players like China and Iran.
An investigation by the magazine USA today found between 2011 and 2014, there were no less than 362 reports of physical and cyber attacks on electric utility companies. Indeed in 2013 alone some 161 cyber attacks on the energy sector were reported to the US Department of Homeland Security. That is five times higher than just a couple of years before.
It seems nobody here will confirm or deny whether this is also happening here. But I am told much effort is going into creating what are known as ‘air gaps’ between networks. These are essentially systems that ensure the Grid can split apart quickly, in the event of a breach, in order to stop contagion. One problem is so many components used in power stations are so customised that they are difficult to replace in a hurry if damage occurs.
And where are all too many of these components made? Why, in China. Precisely the place American government officials fear boasts the largest number of cyber troublemakers – based both in bedsits and in state sponsored areas. Maybe the time has come for generators to return to retaining rather larger inventories of spare parts? As well as employing even more cyber security experts.
Forever Amber
I was pleased to learn, now Amber Rudd represents them in Cabinet, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has published an Organisational Structure. Diligent as ever, I have spent some considerable time studying this exciting document. This is in order to understand just what it is the people working for Forever Amber actually do.
I can see what it they no longer do. Up until the election, there were four quite separate Development Offices within DECC. These covered respectively : a) carbon capture and storage; b)renewable energy (albeit with just a temporary director in charge);c) nuclear development; and d) energy efficiency.
Now it seems the last named has vanished. Curious, as when he launched it, Forever Amber’s predecessor Ed Davey, described the Energy Efficiency Deployment Office as his “number one priority.”
But as over half of the discretionary cuts in Departmental expenditure are being borne by the axing of energy saving schemes, perhaps this is an acknowledgment of the truth. That Whitehall is now only interested in promoting electricity supplies. And again has no interest at all in trying to manage how much demand there is for it.
A senseless and fit man
My warmest congratulations are due to John Constable. He has just been appointed as the head of the new Energy Institute at the University of Buckingham.
One or two of my readers may not be fully aware of the difference between the University of Buckingham and all the other 127 seats of higher education in the United Kingdom. It is simply this. The University of Buckingham is wholly independent of the state. And as such is entitled to appoint whomsoever they wish, regardless of academic qualifications or track record, even to head up a prestigious new policy unit.
Previously the aforesaid John Constable, who is apparently no relation to the eponymous early 19th century painter, has worked night and day as the managing director of the Renewable Energy Foundation. And it is this employment that has caused some concern to one or two of the esteemed establishment figures – many of whose political opinions seem to have been formed in the early 19th century.
Such Very Important Reactionaries believe the British Empire was built upon the plentiful burning of coal. And thus take a very dim view of the entire concept of renewable electricity.
They should rest easy in their ample country seats. And take heed of the reassuring words from Dame Juliet Davenport OBE, founder of Good Energy, and truly the Queen of RenewableElectricity:
“The problem with the Renewable Energy Foundation is that their name is misleading. It suggests they are in favour of renewables when actually the opposite is true. Although they claim to support small-scale renewable generation, their real agenda is trying to block larger scale windfarms.”
I hope this provides suitable reassurances to all the Sir Tufton Buftons of Buckingham University that this particular John Constable is most definitely, from their point of view, one of us. Or as constables are described in Much Ado About Nothing, “senseless and fit”.
Demarcation disputes at DECC
Perusal of the Department of Energy & Climate Change’s new Organisational Strategy has left me very confused.
Why for instance are there no less than three separate units overseeing ‘Strategy”? What is the actual remit of a unit called “Delivery Stewardship”? What precisely is the purpose of a “Portfolio Unit”? And what on earth is Mr. Hugh McNeil expected to do when arriving in Whitehall each Monday morning, as the official Departmental official in charge of “Change”?
What precisely are the demarcation lines between a) the Office for Nuclear Development; b) the Nuclear Electricity Generation (EU unit), c) the Nuclear Development Engagement and Strategy unit; and d) the Nuclear Resilience and Assurance directorate?
Similarly, why is there a director in charge of Smart Meters and Systems? And then another director in charge of Smart Meters Programme Delivery? And yet a further unit overseeing Delivery of the Smart meters Implementation programme?
Do these folk ever talk to one another? Or do they merrily plough their own lonely furrows?
And is it an entire coincidence the two energy policy areas where anticipated costs have more than doubled over the past decade are precisely these vastly over managed pair: new nuclear and smart meters?
