AN SNP branch’s call for a pause to new renewables projects until zonal pricing is implemented should act as a “wake-up call” to the UK Government, an Octopus Energy boss has said.
The SNP’s Loudon branch has put forward a motion to be considered at the party conference in October, calling for planning approval of large renewables projects to be put on hold “until such a time as a zonal electricity price, benefiting at least all Scottish consumers, has been established and implemented”.
It comes after the UK Government announced last month it would not be pursuing zonal pricing, which would have seen different areas of the UK pay different rates for their electricity based on local supply and demand.
Scottish consumers could have benefitted from some of the cheapest electricity in Europe had the plans gone ahead, Octopus Energy has said.
Rachel Fletcher, director for regulation and economics at Octopus, said the company has long feared a public backlash to renewables would develop if a fairer and more efficient market was not introduced by the UK Government.
She said this motion is example of this coming to fruition and it should be a “wake-up call” for Labour.
“One of the reasons we ran such a strong campaign for zonal pricing was yes, we believe passionately that it would be good for energy consumers, but we were also so passionate because we are very worried about the backlash against renewables,” Fletcher told The National.
“We can see that as electricity bills go up and as renewables are not delivering the promised price advantages to consumers that that backlash is going to grow.
“That is something the renewable community should be worried about, and they should be as vocal as we are being.”
Currently, the UK has one national energy price despite the cost of producing electricity differing throughout the day across the country.
If an offshore wind farm in Scotland produces more electricity than the network can handle it is paid to turn off, or be "constrained", and a gas-fired power plant in the south of England is paid to turn on.
Octopus Energy launched a "wasted wind" tracker last month to show the public how much billpayers' money is being spent on turning off windfarms.
According to the energy provider, constraint costs have hit more than £800 million already this year.
Fletcher said she understood the sentiment behind the SNP branch motion, but she did stress the need to continue investing in renewables for the sake of the environment.
“It is incredibly frustrating for people living in Scotland, close to wind farms, to experience the disruption associated with building wind farms and then to watch them sit idle and also realise they are not directly benefitting from the much lower energy prices they could be receiving were the value of those local wind farms to be reflected in their bills,” she said.
“We fully support the shift to relying on renewables and not fossil fuels and we know that ultimately, a system which has got renewables on it makes us less dependent on imported gas, less exposed to price shocks and should be giving us much lower electricity bills going forward. The problem is the way the system works at the moment.”
She went on: “In the absence of zonal, we need to start getting very serious about solutions to these problems, otherwise what we are going to have is more and more people and political parties saying no to renewables and that is going to be disastrous for the environment and the future security of our energy supplies.”
The motion has made a longlist being considered for the conference and the final agenda will be published on September 19.
The full text reads: “Conference recommends that, in the interests of fairness on a UK-wide basis, planning approval of any new large scale equipment in Scotland required to produce, store or distribute electricity derived mainly or entirely from weather related sources (eg wind, hydro, tidal or solar ) is paused until such time as a zonal electricity price, benefiting at least all Scottish consumers, has been established and implemented.
“Conference resolves that the zonal pricing agreement will supersede any other constraining legislation and will not, as a consequence, lead to detrimental terms for Scottish consumers of other fuel sources (eg gas, oil, coal) nor lead to any Barnet or block grant related consequentials. Large scale in this context will cover equipment in a single planning application with an output greater than 5MW.”
The UK Government and Scottish Government have been approached for comment.
