Octopus Energy has rallied thousands of its small business customers to back an overhaul of Great Britain’s electricity market.
The largest energy supplier in Britain and more than 3,700 of its customers wrote to the Treasury last week calling for an immediate introduction of postcode electricity pricing.
Ministers are preparing to make a decision on the highly divisive debate over whether to divide England, Wales and Scotland’s electricity market into different zones. Northern Ireland, which is not part of Great Britain, has separate arrangements.
Octopus Energy and its founder, Greg Jackson, have taken a leading role in supporting the reforms which would replace a single national electricity market price with multiple zones, each with its own price depending on how much electricity is available.
This would mean that areas with ample electricity generation relative to local demand, such as Scotland, would have lower market prices than more populous urban areas where demand outstrips the amount of local generation.
The company believes this would encourage datacentres and factories to move to the north of the country to take advantage of lower market prices while generators would build new power projects in densely populated areas, where energy demand and market prices would be higher.
However, major renewable energy developers fear that this would deter investment at a crucial juncture if the government hopes to meet its 2030 clean energy targets and lower households bills.
The concerns are supported by a study from the UK Energy Research Centre, a publicly backed research organisation, which said the overhaul could drive up the cost of building windfarms and risk piling an extra £3bn on to household energy bills every year until the 2040s – effectively wiping out the cost benefits of the scheme.
after newsletter promotion
In an email to customers, Jackson claimed that the change would lower energy bills for all homes and businesses based on the findings of “the most thorough analysis”, which was commissioned by Octopus Energy last year.
The email included a short survey asking business customers to indicate whether they support the reforms. Those that voted in favour of zonal pricing were later informed that the name of their business had been automatically added to a letter to the government although they could still opt-out by a set deadline.
The support of Octopus Energy customers contrasts with the findings of an opinion poll commission by Renewable UK, the trade group for major renewables developers, which found that 58% of people in England and Wales opposed zonal pricing, while only 14% were supportive of it.
The survey of 3,000 adults found that almost two-thirds of the public saw the policy as unfair, whereas only 16% thought it would be a fair system. Almost three-quarters said the government should instead prioritise reducing energy costs for all parts of the country at a flat rate.
Source: theguardian.com
