Britain’s Green Rent-Seeker’s Paradise

The brain eaters’ are coming for your cash

On Monday, the National Energy System Operator (NESO), (now an office of the Department for Energy Security) announced changes to the “pipeline” for projects that will deliver Ed Miliband’s “Clean Power 2030” agenda. This will unlock, claim NESO’s wonks, “£40 billion in clean investment annually”. “This overhaul of the connections process is the single most important step we will take towards a clean power system”, explained former Climate Change Committee CEO Chris Stark, now in position as “Head of Mission Control for Clean Power 2030” for Ed Miliband.

The problem that this “reform” addresses is one that I have written about recently here. The absurd subsidies that have driven Britain’s irrational renewable energy development have created a massive queue of subsidy farmers. These have been dealt with on a first-come first-served basis, claim the wonks. And that puts the problems of bureaucratic process, grid integration and financing in the way of delivering the 2030 agenda. Instead, the most viable projects will now be given priority and moved further up the queue.