Utility Week

UTILITY WEEK | JUNE 2021 | 27 Policy & Regulation spot, and have no substantial infrastructure or capability to have infrastructure there." Buckland, who is now a director at public affairs company Flint Global, says there is an argument for having higher network charges in areas more remote from main centres of demand but acknowledges they have a "meaningful impact" on generation projects. Expect these kinds of arguments to get a lot more airtime if the pro-independence bandwagon gathers momentum. Scottish energy agency The SNP manifesto included a pledge that it would set up a Scottish energy agency instead of its previous plans to establish a public-owned supply company. While the body would have a declared focus on decarbonising the nation's hous- ing stock, it could provide an essential energy policy block for a future independent Scotland. Energy will be a "huge part" of any future independence debate, says MacNeil: "When we move beyond our own election to our devolved parliament, energy will be a bigger part of the game. "We have a second windfall coming through so will be sure that will be a large part of the independence debate." Buckland agrees that energy and climate will feature more highly than in the 2014 referendum. "Both the Scottish government and the pro-independence parties have attached themselves to net zero and deliver- ing ambitious actions," he says. Equally, Buckland says the unionist par- ties will point to what the UK as a whole has achieved over the past ten years in rolling out low-carbon technology. March's Budget gave a taster of that as chancellor Rishi Sunak mentioned Peterhead in northeast Scotland as one of the potential locations for a pioneering carbon capture and storage (CCS) cluster. Alan Whitehead, shadow energy minister, says independence would involve an SNP government having to make hard choices between its ambitious climate commitment and support for Scotland's North Sea oil and gas industry. "The fact that energy is a reserved mat- ter allows that contradiction to be sustained, but at independence it would have to be faced," he says. The biggest worry for the industry, though, is that independence could mean the end of the UK-wide electricity market, which is being extended with new offshore transmission lines. "Devolution around energy and climate is very complex; unpicking that will be tricky," says Tim Lord, senior fellow at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. "The GB- wide energy market is good for customers," says Markall. The integrated nature of the existing energy system makes sense for the industry too, says Buckland: "That makes projects really competitive but any level of increased market friction would increase prices. "Irrespective of whether Scotland became independent, there would be benefits to a continued unified energy system. You would want to keep some level of coordination within the market." Scotland will have to weather the peaks and troughs of renewables Lord, who was director of clean growth at the Department for Business, Energy and Indus- trial Strategy (BEIS), argues that it would not be in the Scottish electricity sector's interests to go it alone. While the figures for overall renewable generation are undoubtedly impressive, the intermittent nature of wind and solar power means that Scotland could be exposed to big peaks and troughs of demand if it is less able to sell to English consumers, he says. "If they weren't connected to a unified energy system, they would have had a few blackouts along the way," he says. "Where there are things that are genuine no-brainers to have a cross-border approach, you have to make sure you do that. "If were to end up with independence energy and climate is one of the key areas where continued collaboration would be beneficial." And independence could raise big ques- tion marks over how the rest of the UK could achieve its 2050 net zero goals, given how heavily concentrated renewable generation is in Scotland. "If you look at any plausible net zero scenario, it is very heavily dependent on lots of renewables, afforestation, CCS and bio- energy: a lot of that will come from Scot- land," says Lord. "It looks very difficult. I suspect that Scotland and England pursuing separate net zero strategies would be a lot less efficient." Nationalists "definitely" want to maintain as large a network as possible, says Mac- Neil, who makes the case that independence offers a route for Scotland to reintegrate with the EU's wider energy market. "We will be keen to ensure lights stay on in England and do our best not to regress back to the days of the Tilley Lamp." However, the way energy cooperation has been sidelined amid the UK's fractious break up with its erstwhile EU partners illustrates how base politics can win out when issues of identity are at stake. David Blackman, policy correspondent

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