States lack a clear vision on energy future

A decade or so ago the island had great hopes that the future would be about tidal, with visions of exporting electricity to the UK.

That technology has failed to develop to a commercial scale as the reality of working in such a tough environment bite.

Now there are signs that the real leaps are being made in much more localised projects, businesses and householders producing their own power.

If storage technology advances as quickly as predicted, there could be a fundamental shift away from the classic model of a centralised energy company producing everything and everyone else consuming it.

Predicting and adjusting for that change is one of the big challenges for Guernsey Electricity and the States.

The rate of change raises fundamental questions about what to invest in and when, including, for example, the planned new cable link with France.

It poses the conundrum of how to fairly fund the electricity infrastructure that the whole island relies on and would still be needed even if we did all become, in effect, individual power companies.

The 100kW’s that Guernsey Electricity’s solar scheme is expected to produce is a small fraction of the total power demand in the island, but as the largest scheme yet in the island it will be watched with great interest by other businesses to see whether it proves cost effective.

The electrification of life is advancing – the pledges being made by car manufacturers and the countries to phase-out petrol and diesel vehicles shows that.

Also fitting into this picture is the States grappling with what to do about securing hydrocarbon imports in the face of these changes.

Ultimately, a robust short and medium term future will be based around a mix of different forms of energy supply – but at the moment the States lacks a coherent vision to show where it wants to go and why.