Prime Minister Andy Burnham will today unveil plans for a new publicly owned Great British Grid aimed at speeding up electricity connections, increasing competition and bringing UK energy costs closer to European levels.
He will use his Labour Party conference speech to announce GB Grid as a new body within Great British Energy, marking the first direct state-owned player in electricity networks since privatisation.
The company will invest in grid infrastructure and work alongside existing network companies rather than replacing them, with a particular focus on transmission projects and areas where connection delays are holding back investment.
Burnham is expected to set a target of bringing Britain’s energy costs into line with other European countries within 10 years, linking grid reform directly to the Government’s wider plans for ‘reindustrialisation’.
Businesses have repeatedly warned that access to electricity is becoming a barrier to investment, particularly for data centres, manufacturing, electric vehicle infrastructure and other large power users.
The Government itself has acknowledged that demand for electricity could more than double by 2050 and that long waits for new infrastructure are preventing strategically important projects from connecting when they need to.
GB Grid is intended to provide another route through that bottleneck.
Under wider reforms now being developed, businesses will gain greater rights to build high-voltage connection infrastructure themselves rather than relying entirely on network companies to deliver it.
GB Grid would be able to support and co-invest in those projects, potentially allowing companies to move ahead more quickly while existing networks concentrate resources on larger system upgrades.
Ofgem said earlier this year there was strong industry demand for greater self-build rights because they could give developers more control over delivery and potentially produce faster or cheaper connections.
Burnham will tell conference delegates: “Within ten years, I want our energy costs to be in line with other nations in Europe. That means we must reform a broken energy market so it serves the public interest.”
He will add: “I can announce today our plan for Great British Grid, a publicly-owned company that will work with the private sector and network companies. It will increase competition to drive down costs and speed up delivery so businesses can connect faster and grow quicker.”
The new organisation will be funded from within Great British Energy’s existing resources rather than through a separate new spending commitment.
Great British Energy and Great British Energy–Nuclear already have more than £8.3 billion of investment allocated over the current spending period, covering clean generation, supply chains and nuclear development.
GB Grid significantly broadens that role by moving the publicly owned company directly into electricity networks.
For Burnham, the argument is that building more renewable generation is not enough if businesses, homes and industry cannot connect to it.
The new body will therefore be tasked with helping Britain build the physical network needed to turn planned clean power investment into usable electricity.
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