The rapid rise of energy bills has affected almost every person and business in the U.K, and as smaller energy suppliers have gone bust, we’ve seen a return of the dominance of the “big six” energy companies.
Last week in Parliament, MPs launched a fresh bid to challenge that dominance by enabling the growth of community energy schemes.
The main problem with having such a small number of providers is that the tariffs are unlikely to be competitive, so customers have limited choices and face higher bills.
At the same time, if you want to buy your electricity from local renewable sources, such as the local school or sports hall that have solar panels on their roofs, you’re simply not allowed to. You have to buy it from the National Grid.
This means that a community with local renewable generation, like housing developments with solar panels or a local wind farm, can’t sell their energy directly to local people.
They have to sell it through a big utility firm, who often markup the price substantially.
There is a campaign group trying to change this and unusually, they have the backing of more than 300 MPs - almost half of all MPs in parliament - who come from six political parties.
I’ve been a supporter of the “Local Electricity Bill” since I was elected in 2019, and it’s also supported locally by the district council and Sustainable St Albans.
It would transform the energy market, by scrapping complex network agreements and putting local communities in the driving seat.
Last week, MPs tried to include the key clauses into the government’s own Energy Bill. Despite the broad cross-party support, including from a number of Conservative MPs, the government are so far refusing to support the idea.
For me personally, this issue goes to the heart of what it means to be a Liberal: if you believe, as I do, that individuals should be free to make choices and influence the decisions that affect their lives, then you need to break up the concentration of power in the hands of a few, wherever you find it.
The government itself faces a choice: it can unleash the potential of community energy schemes that enjoy widespread support, or it can continue to back the vested interests of the big energy companies. Time will tell.
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