States need to ‘act this day’ or risk re-carbonising the island

Wednesday 08 June 2022

The government’s recent track record of ‘kicking the can down the road’ when it comes to critical decision making has been highlighted by the Chamber of Commerce during an event about the future energy transition.

The Chamber hosted a panel of industry experts at the OGH to discuss Guernsey’s Energy Policy and the upcoming Electricity Strategy being put before the States Assembly.

The panel was comprised of the President for the Environment & Infrastructure, Deputy Lindsay de Sausmarez; Chief Executive of Guernsey Electricity (GEL), Alan Bates; CEO of the Little Green Energy Company, Bob Beebe; and Managing Director of the newly renamed Guernsey Energy (formerly Guernsey Gas), Alex Herschel.

The panel discussed a wide range of topics relating to energy and electricity on island and the ways in which Guernsey needs to approach the global energy transition; moving away from the brown economy (underpinned by fossil fuels) to the green economy.

Pictured: The panel discussed the journey the island needs to embark on to keep up with the energy transition.

Part of the discussion revolved around the States of Guernsey's Energy Policy 2020-2050, which was approved in 2020. The policy letter from E&I set out where the island needs to go and to which targets it needs to aspire to, including net zero emissions by 2050.

A strand of the policy letter that is currently being worked on is the Electricity Strategy. While not specifically only about electricity, the strategy will outline various options available to the island to get to the targets set out in the Energy Policy. 

It’s set to be debated later this year, but one of the Executive Team at the Chamber, Rupert Dorey, who was hosting the event at the OGH, raised concerns about the current trend of States voting.

“Fundamentally the decision we are going to have to make is going to be a political one and that scares me,” he said.

“You’ve only got to look at the news to see the recent states voting record on harbours, secondary pensions, taxation… do we want to add an electricity strategy to that pile? How motivated is the current states to achieve something on this?”

Pictured: Deputies agreed to a direct undersea power cable to France during the energy policy debate in 2020, subject to a business case being put forward.

Mr Dorey put his concerns to Deputy de Sausmarez, who agreed that the current States doesn’t have a good track record, but the option of doing nothing is untenable.

“It’s primarily my job to explain to the States - who you depressingly summarised as not having a good track record of making decisions this term - that there is no such thing as a ‘do-nothing’ decision in this scenario,” she said.

“If we fail to make a decision through the electricity strategy debate, that will have to inform various commercial decisions; not least from GEL.”

These decisions were fleshed out by the CEO of GEL, Mr Bates, who said the States would be indirectly re-carbonising the island if a decision wasn’t made.

“Guernsey needs clear government policy direction to make the transition happen for Guernsey,” he said. 

“If we don’t do that the implications are that we will spend a lot of money on hydrocarbon generation which is absolutely the wrong thing to do and we will spend a lot of money not achieving targets. It’s quite clear that that direction is absolutely needed now.”

Despite this, Deputy de Sausmarez remains hopeful that action will be taken when the strategy is brought before the States later this year.

“In fairness I do think there is a real appetite to see the Electricity Strategy and to make a decision.”

Pictured top: “We are absolutely determined to bring the Electricity Strategy to the states as soon as possible,” said Deputy de Sausmarez.