Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Up to now, the solution has been to build more storage or curtail generation. Both approaches can work, but both can also be expensive. …”
How the new Great British Grid could help households benefit from abundant and cheap renewable power
Published: October 2, 2026 12.23am AEST
Jacopo Torriti
Professor of Energy Economics and Policy, University of ReadingPrime Minister Andy Burnham’s proposal to create a new Great British Grid has put a spotlight on one of the UK’s biggest energy challenges: connection queues. But building a larger grid to accommodate renewable energy is only half the problem. Britain also needs to get better at using electricity when it is abundant and cheap.
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For years, energy policy has focused on getting consumers to reduce demand at peak times through smart tariffs, energy efficiency incentives and other measures.
That logic still matters. But as wind and solar generation continue to expand, the system is beginning to face the opposite problem more often: periods when there is more renewable electricity available than the network or market can absorb.
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Up to now, the solution has been to build more storage or curtail generation. Both approaches can work, but both can also be expensive.
The alternative is both simple and radical: pay people to use more electricity.
…For households, this could mean charging an electric vehicle, heating water or running appliances when there is surplus renewable power on the system. For businesses, it could involve scheduling electricity-intensive activities to coincide with periods of high wind and solar generation.
…This rewards households that already own expensive technologies such as electric vehicles, home batteries or smart heat pumps that can use electricity when it is cheapest. Demand turn-up could potentially be more inclusive. Rather than rewarding those with the greatest ability to invest in flexibility assets, it can create value from everyday electricity uses.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/how-the-new-great-british-grid-could-help-households-benefit-from-abundant-and-cheap-renewable-power-293295
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What about businesses which need to run energy-intensive activities all the time?
I like making things. While pursuing my hobbies, I got fed up with cheap metal working equipment, so I bought a large compressor and a set of pneumatic tools, the kind of air powered tools motor vehicle mechanics use.
When those tools are running, my low end trade shop compressor is pouring 3000 watts through metal working tools not much larger than the palm of my hand. The tools are a delight to use – they make working quite substantial pieces of sheet steel as easy as wood working.
Real businesses also use such machines, usually on a far larger scale. 3000 watts per worker is about the minimum those machines use – serious professional versions of my low end trade tools use far greater amounts of power per worker.
What are energy intensive businesses which use such tools supposed to do with Professor Toritti’s brave new intermittent energy plan? Stop repairing automobiles or manufacturing goods, except for a few hours around midday in Summer when the sun is shining?
How can an economy possibly function with such intermittency? Do workers get sent home on low power days, only coming in to work when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing? Who pays the business expenses and worker’s wages when business activity is curtailed due to lack of available energy? Are workers paid whether they can work or not, or do they only get paid when energy is available?
What happens when the weather turns, and crops have to be urgently harvested before they rot in the ground – but the 10s of thousands of watts each electric tractor requires is not available at the time it is needed?
You would think a professor of economics might have thought about these issues, before proposing such absurdity.
Of course as Professor Toritti noted, rich people who can afford batteries and other backup systems won’t have to suffer the inconveniences poor people will be expected to endure – they can time shift energy to whenever they need it. But probably not on an industrial scale. The lower rungs of society such as ordinary workers will have to fight for scraps of energy availability, and go hungry when the weather turns against industrial activity.
Is this really the kind of Britain voters want to build? Wake up Britain – because the future Professor Toritti painted, they really mean it. This is the true nature of the reality that Milliband and Burham and all the other green globalists are working to create. And it will arrive sooner than you think, unless you make a stand and reject this disgusting reversion to Dickensian levels of poverty and privilege.
