Why we need different electricity pricing for households in Yorkshire - Andy Brown

There is, however, an increasingly convenient way of drawing down our energy when it is at its cheapest that is being seriously neglected in our energy strategy. Installing a home battery is a very easy way to cut running costs and the size and capacity of energy storage units is making this an increasingly practical solution that can easily be put into almost any home.

This idea is being adopted at speed by increasing numbers of business investors. There is a lot of money to be made by storing away energy on a commercial scale during the night and releasing it back onto the grid when it is needed.

In a logical world the best place to put industrial scale battery storage units is not on a green field in the middle of the countryside. It is inside a disused factory in the inner city.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in an entirely logical world and the national grid has been primarily designed to pump out electricity at the same price to anywhere in the country that needs it.

Only in a few places is it equipped to receive power back at scale. Scandalously, the waiting list for a company to get connected to supply power back to the grid is currently several years in most locations.

The result is that wherever it is relatively easy to get a connection to the grid, communities are being inundated with applications to install solar power generation on green fields and to put battery storage units in the countryside.

For the nation it makes good sense to put facilities near to connection points. For the local community less so. There is nothing in legislation that provides any payback to local people if their village gets a large battery storage unit nearby or a local hillside gets covered over by solar panels.

We urgently need the grid to get a lot better at receiving energy generated or stored in our inner cities and we need planning rules changing to ensure that local communities share in the benefits by both a reduction in their bills and funds to support community projects.

It is pretty cheap and easy these days to generate genuinely green energy. Wind turbines churn away night and day producing a high proportion of the cheapest power that goes into the grid. Solar power comes almost for free once the installation has been completed.

It is a lot less straightforward to deliver it to the places it is needed at the time it is needed. There are occasions when so much power is available at night that the grid pays operators not to supply it. By contrast a great deal of money is spent on back up generation that is only really needed at peak times.

If enough people and companies invest in storage or switch to off peak use Britain would be able to avoid the cost of running and maintaining between a third and a half of all the power stations we are currently expected to require.

Incentivising much more widespread use of battery storage in order to cut peak time pressure on the grid is much cheaper than building extra capacity but has been seriously neglected in government policy making. The cost for building one nuclear power station at Hinkley Point is currently estimated at around £32bn.

You can buy a lot of energy storage capacity for that kind of money, incentivise a lot of homes to install home batteries to cut bills and still have cash to spare to provide hefty discounts to anyone living in a community that hosts a storage facility.

Whilst we are at it, we could also start cutting the cost of electricity close to where it is generated. It makes no sense to charge the same amount for power to businesses that are located in Yorkshire using power coming in from North Sea wind farms as is charged to companies located in the south.

Moving electricity requires expensive pylons and creates eyesores across some fantastic countryside. It is better by far to use it locally and that needs to be reflected in the price.

The days when it was reasonable to charge the same amount for electricity regardless of where and when it is used have gone. Yorkshire has a particularly strong incentive to back differential pricing.

The north of England became the workshop of the world because we had advanced technology, a well trained workforce and low cost energy.

The same combination can drive forward its regeneration. Only this time round we can do it a lot cleaner and greener. If we put our minds to it.

Andy Brown is the Green Party councillor for Aire Valley in North Yorkshire.