Follow @RoryTingle1 Whipped Green: October 2013

Friday 25 October 2013

"If and when people get their heads together to solve the problem, they will solve the problem." An interview with a world-leading energy expert.

I talk to Janusz Bialek, DONG Professor of Renewable Energy at Durham University. 


An expert's view of the issues facing the energy industry

“Necessity is the mother of invention”. Professor Bialek’s phrase neatly sums up the most important feature of the energy debate in Britain and across the world. We need energy for our civilisation to function, but we also need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions if our civilisation is to continue to exist. The attempt to reconcile the need for energy with that of protecting the environment underlies all of Janusz’s work.

Alongside being a world-leading expert who has produced some 140 research papers, Janusz has advised the UK government and European Commission on energy infrastructure. An interview in the New Statesman in 2011 confirmed his prominence in the national energy debate, and he is widely sought after by the media.

We start on the issue of rising energy bills, which is especially timely as a number of companies have just announced significant increases in customer levies. The rising cost of energy has been criticised as yet another example of corporate greed by some commentators, but Janusz is keen to stress the importance of other factors.

     “What the generators do is obviously to increase prices now in order to ride through any price             freeze if it comes”.

“If you look at electricity bills, about 50% of the bill is due to the wholesale price of energy. The so-called ‘marginal’ fuel for electricity (which is the fuel that determines energy prices) is gas. So if the gas price goes up, as it is at the moment, then the final electricity price has to go up.”

He explains that rising gas prices are due in part to the increasing demand for the fuel as countries such as Japan and Germany abandon nuclear power after the Fukishima disaster. The glut of shale gas from fracking has also caused a huge amount of coal to flood the European market from the USA, as it is no longer needed for electricity generation. This means that gas plants in Britain are running at a loss, because it costs generators more to buy the gas than they get from selling it. Energy companies therefore rise prices for consumers to correct this shortfall. I ask if Labour’s proposed energy bill freeze if they win the election in 2015 could be a solution to the growing pressure on households.