It comes under the heading of “reinventing the wheel”.

Hmm!


At first this appears to be another piece of media speculation, with a few bold ideas for the future but with little explanation or justification. But it certainly has possibilities, which could be to our advantage.


Just where will this £4·8 bn be "squandered" if we carry on as at present?


What has not changed over the last 50 years or so? We still have much the same infrastructure. Power stations feeding electricity into the grid, subsequently to be taken by distribution networks, feeding the service cables to our homes.


The difference is a matter of money. The Central Electricity Generating Board, as was, operated the power stations and national grid. The choice of which power plant to deploy was based on operating efficiency - cost per unit sent out. Older and less-efficient power stations were brought on line only when extra demand for power required it.


Nowadays, National Grid does not just control the plant on line; it also operates a wheeling and dealing exercise. We now have many, many, so-called energy suppliers, most of which do not actually generate, transmit or distribute power. The just process our electricity bills, take our money, take their cut and pass on the rest to the trading arms. So, in most cases, there is no plant efficiency to consider; it is a matter of striking trading deals.


The Daily Mail article suggests four possible alternatives, one of which is put National Grid into public ownership. It is starting to sound like past times, isn't it? A comparison is made with Network Rail, and there is earlier comment about "conflict of interest".


I would hope for something more clearly defined than Network Rail. That organisation has many good points, but its responsibility for station operation is blurred. It maintains the tracks and other infrastructure, but individual private rail companies operate the general running of stations. This causes conflict of interest between the company "operating" the station and other companies operating train services through it.


To avoid conflict of interest on the national grid, we would need to put the generating side into public ownership as well, ensuring that cost of energy generated and fuel mix of renewable sources were adequately accounted for.


We could take this a step further of course. Why not abolish the "energy supply companies", and have the regional distribution networks read our (smart) meters and bill us? So in the south, for example, one would be dealing with a local, southern based organisation, and not one in Scotland.


Sounds like past times? I am not against progress - far from it - but it will take a lot to convince me that the present set-up serves us better than the nationalised industry we  used to have.


Sparkingchip could not have put it more succinctly.

I was looking for some company information on the internet and a search threw up an odd result.


It was a freedom of information request for the business rates paid in North Wales, scanning through it the highest amount paid in business rates was by the power stations, the next highest being the supermarkets.


Looking at it it’s easy to see that the power stations keep the whole of the local communities going, if they closed then there would not be the money to pay for the services that local people need. I know it is not quite that straightforward, as the Government collects business rates and redistributes them, but you get the gist.


Indeed I have talked to people who live in areas where power stations have closed down and they described it as ripping the heart out of the community because of the loss of well paid jobs on a par with the mines closing.


There is a lot riding on the back of electricity generation, it’s easy to say we can get rid of this and that or streamline the operation to reduce costs, but actually small communities may lose the funding for their services and indeed their jobs.

I have every confidence that our politicians (of whatever political persuasion) and the Civil Servants will produce  a solution that is more opaque, less functional and more expensive than what went before.


And a few of the usual suspects will make a fortune from consultancy when setting it up and then from running it.


Me cynical - Never

If the UK to Iceland cable is installed what role, if any, would/should National Grid have?

https://www.powerengineeringint.com/coal-fired/iceland-uk-power-interconnector-delayed-by-brexit/