President Macron’s threat to cut power supplies to Jersey over a fishing dispute with Britain is a serious and timely wake-up call. For all of the words and rhetoric from Cop26 on clean energy there has been too little said or volunteered on strengthening British energy security and resilience, which is arguably as important.
That a Nato/G7/security council partner should consider abusing its position as an energy supplier to a neighbouring British territory raises bigger questions about the dash to import more electricity from Europe. Undersea interconnector wires could supply up to a third of all British electricity within a decade. Problems with this growing over-reliance on imports include their availability, price and carbon footprint. Future supplies of imported power will be dependent on higher British prices attracting the flows through the wires. But even before foreign leaders threaten to cut them off, abundant supplies must exist so prices can attract them.
Across Europe many nuclear, coal and gas power stations are closing due to age or to meet new emissions rules. This is reducing the amount of surplus electricity generation that has traditionally been available for export, especially as the Continent moves to a more intermittent and weather-dependent energy network. A key question is what this means for spare availability for Britain in the medium and long term.
The UK has similarly been closing its nuclear, coal, oil and gas power plants for reasons connected to a failing capacity market, emissions, age and over-zealously following EU diktat. The failure to replace this domestic energy generation and instead opting for imported and more weather-dependent supplies will lead to high bills and supply risks.
Another key issue is which fuels are generating these imports and why they don’t face British carbon taxes. A former energy minister has admitted that the government is unable to identify which fuels are supplying Britain’s power imports. This is no longer acceptable and ministers should work to provide a full breakdown; for example, what proportion of electricity imports from the Netherlands are generated from coal and gas? Surely these fossil fuel imports should be taxed at the same rate as coal and gas power generators in the UK. Put simply, Britain is offshoring its energy emissions, jobs and resilience through interconnectors.
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Jersey used to generate all of the electricity it required. Its interconnector with France is now being used by Paris to threaten London in a diplomatic dispute. Ministers must heed the lesson and rebuild our energy security.