|
|
|
|
| Tue, 2nd May 2023 9:18:00 |
|
John Pettigrew: National Grid chief on why the public must not block the charge to net zero |
Events of the past year turned the heat up on the energy network, but the man at its helm is unfazed, putting faith in civic duty and turning down the thermostat
As a child growing up in a village at the edge of the Welsh valleys outside Cardiff, John Pettigrew was nagged by his parents to switch the lights off whenever he left a room. Now, he’s part of a national effort to slash Britain’s energy use in the face of bills sent soaring by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and resulting concerns about gas and electricity supplies.
Despite having collected a total of more than £30m in cumulative pay and benefits in his time as chief executive of National Grid, Pettigrew has not forgotten his parents’ advice. “I’m the same with my family now – making sure the thermostat is turned down a few degrees, doing the sensible things,” he says. “It is the right thing to do from an environmental [and] an affordability perspective. We were very supportive of the government and other bodies advocating for people to do that.”
Pettigrew has just ridden out a tense winter, marked by people having to choose between heating and eating and talk of power cuts. Last autumn, National Grid voiced concerns that Britons could experience blackouts as well as wallet-busting bills during the coldest months.
We came through the winter remarkably well. The weather was relatively mild
As it turned out, worries that Vladimir Putin would halt Russian gas supplies into Europe did not materialise and cold snaps were not prolonged, so the continent’s gas storage caverns could remain well stocked. “We came through the winter remarkably well,” Pettigrew says, in deep Welsh tones. “The weather was relatively mild and when we did see cold periods, the products that we developed were very useful.”
Those “products” were new technical tweaks that National Grid added to the formerly monolithic power system: a demand flexibility service, which paid consumers to shift their energy use away from periods of high usage, and contracts to keep coal plants on standby, at a cost of up to £420m. In the end, neither proved essential.
The spring weather may be taking its time to arrive, but Pettigrew is already turning his mind to next winter, with plans afoot to expand the flexibility service. But he believes it is still “a bit early” to say whether we should be concerned about supply shortages for next winter, with the quantities of gas imported to Europe in the coming months a major factor. Despite a recent easing in wholesale gas prices, he expects bills to remain above historical highs with “some tension in the system for a couple of years”.
Russia’s state-owned gas behemoth, Gazprom, has been busily trolling Europe, claiming that next winter could be harder.
Never before has the business of energy, and keeping lights on and homes warm, been as critical, and this previously staid business has been thrust into the public eye.
National Grid is a £42bn FTSE 100 company that operates Britain’s power infrastructure, and its assets are split roughly equally on both sides of the Atlantic. In an indicator of its low-carbon direction, 70% of its assets are in electricity, and 30% in gas.
Some of National Grid’s responsibilities will be nationalised later this year, when the spin-out of its electricity system operator (ESO) – which ensures that energy supply meets demand – is ratified in legislation. Negotiations on the price the government will pay National Grid for the ESO have yet to begin, Pettigrew says.
His desk at National Grid’s grandiose London headquarters overlooks Trafalgar Square. In the distance, down the Mall, we can see marquees being erected in preparation for next weekend’s coronation festivities, as Britain formally enters a new royal era. And Pettigrew, too, is planning his own new chapter for the country – albeit with a tad less pomp and ceremony.
It’s more than just looking after some electrical infrastructure: it’s about energy security and affordability, and tackling climate change
He is trying to engage the public in the Great Grid Upgrade, the £54bn task of upgrading the pylons and cables connecting offshore wind and solar projects to the electricity network as part of the push for net zero. He faces a battle, with some communities – such as those opposing onshore connections to wind projects in East Anglia – resisting the upheaval of major infrastructure projects.
Pettigrew hopes to appeal to a sense of civic duty. “People are going to be asked to host infrastructure, and in a way they’re doing that on behalf of UK plc. It’s really important that they see the grid upgrade in the context of what’s going on across not just in the UK, but globally. It’s more than just looking after some electrical infrastructure: it’s actually about energy security and affordability, and tackling climate change.”
But the National Grid has come under fire from the energy industry, where renewables developers claim it has been glacially slow in connecting new projects: some saying it took up to 13 years to get hooked up. These developers hope to gain from the push to decarbonise, as every sector, from heavy industry to electric cars to home heat pumps, drives demand for electricity.
Pettigrew says connections are carried out on a first-come, first-served basis. But the 2030 target of delivering 50 gigawatts of offshore wind is fast approaching and he is pressing regulators to be allowed to proactively invest in building links. The amount network companies like his can charge customers for upgrades is regulated by Ofgem – the average household pays just over £300 a year for the cost of the network. “We can’t start any work on the network until someone signs a connection agreement – if we were able to do anticipatory investment we could get ahead of the curve.”
Read original full article
|
| |
|
|
Back to Featured Articles
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
