The £1 Billion Left-Wing “Community Energy” Experiment That Will Fail
The word ‘billion’ falls out of politicians’ mouths so easily these days it might just as well be punctuation. It’s as if politicians do not feel they have said anything if they have not committed some number of billions to some policy or other. This week, among other billions, one billion pounds were committed to something called “community energy”. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero proudly announced on Monday, the “biggest ever public investment in community energy will cut bills and create revenue for community centres, social clubs and places of worship”.
Granted, it’s not a hill of beans all by itself, but every time a politician commits £1 billion to something, it costs on average £35 per household. If there was such a thing as a “community” worthy of the term, surely the least that it would have within its means is to raise its own funds. What is a “community” if it is not defined by its capacity to act in such a way? Furthermore, what is a “community” if the £35 is to be taken as tax from households, to be given to the “community”? The word is uttered as glibly as ‘billion’ and ‘climate crisis’.
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The only people taking control of energy now are Politicians aligned with the UN/WEF Political Agenda called Sustainable Development. They are taking control of it to price us out of using it while at the same time gaslighting us all with talk of “cheaper energy bills”. The Energy and climate scam is the greatest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated and bills are going in one direction only—–UP. ——According to the UN and the ass licker’s like Miliband who hang onto their every word we have too much of everything and we are to make do with less. —–This all starts with energy and we are to have affordable reliable energy removed (fossil fuels) to be replaced with unaffordable unreliable energy (wind and sun)——The seemingly plausible excuse for this eco socialism is Climate Change. But even if there is a smidgen of truth to this manufactured crisis, the UK is only 1% of it and whatever we do will make not the slightest difference to global climate. —–So if it will make no difference, then why do it? Also why do it at breakneck speed faster and harder than every other country? —–Because it isn’t and never has been about the… Read more »
Please stop Milliband stealing money from me and giving it to other people.
Yes. Let us persuade the country what a loonie he is and get him thrown out of government and away from the levers of power (pun intended).
I just wish Epstein had been interested in him.
Not a chance. Him??
Just stop Milliband. Full stop.
Here’s an idea Mr Millitwat, let’s not do this and instantly save every household 35 quid….
I think you misspelled milliwatt… Oh!
🙂
And not do all the other loony schemes insane Millibrain has dreamt up, saving us all lots more money.
So let’s say your local energy board is set up. How long before the Pecksniffian members of the ‘Oversight Committee’ send out warning letters to those who have their lights on beyond 10 pm, or mow the lawn more than once a month?
How long before the corruption becomes unmissable and the first lynchings?
I do not want my energy supply being managed by a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs with no experience of running a business and no experience or skills in energy supply management, thank you very much. Meanwhile the DESNZ continues peddling the lie that “clean energy” is somehow compatible with energy security and the protection of billpayers. It would be laughable, were it not for the fact that our money’s being thrown away on these vanity projects.
If communities really had their way, they would get their energy from the lowest cost source available. Fracking.
and Coal
I’ve just had a response frpm my local councill to an FOIA request about a row of eco-spec social housing they commissioned at a premium over the normal social housing cost. I wanted to know, eg, what, lessons had been learned, what impact the experience had or would have on their housing policy. The answer? Bugger-all. All they did was tick a few virtue signalling boxes at taxpayers’ expense. It won’t end there.
Don’t forget the billions spent on “active travel”. Cycle routes used only by the able-bodied and footpaths for those travelling light in good weather….
Don’t get me started on “active travel” This same council has a budget of £millions for stuff nobody wants or needs.They even considered a “Dutch Roundabout” but the idea was lauhghed out of court.
The only use I can see for any of these so-called “solutions” is a very remote community with an unreliable grid connection, some remote farming or croft community in a very windswept area.
Something like that could “possibly” benefit from a wind turbine, some solar panels and some battery backups – beyond that it just does not, and never will scale!
It’s not uncommon for large German cities to run their own power plants which provide both electricty and heat to the inhabitants which means there’s nothing wrong with this in principle, although maybe a lot wrong with it in practice in Great Britain with its present energy policy.
Fifty years ago, I went to University in Durham, where the colleges and the university’s other facilities were linked to a central boiler system and supplied with the heating in a similar style of enterprise.
My own college was not alone in thinking that distancing the production of the heat from the various consumers was a VERY bad idea -the colleges had no control of the cost of production and no-one in the system had any incentive to economise. (IIRC, the costs were allocated to the various consumers by a simple tally of the number of radiators they possessed.)
Eventually, and to much rejoicing, the centralised system was scrapped and the colleges were allowed to install their own modern gas-fired boilers, allowing them to manage their own cost of production and benefit from any reduction in their consumption.
Now, thanks to the “Climate Crisis”, the University has been able to force another centralised “Community Heating” scheme on them all.
Community Heating is another Socialist initiative that promises the earth, yet delivers damn-all to the consumers, other than the University’s big-wigs, who’ll be delighted to receive their gongs from King Charles in due course..
I am happy to bring a small “community” project failure to national attention. Locally a proposal was put forward for a Business Improvement District, or BID. The glossy brochure outlined the benefits, which appeared to be a couple of things the council could not do, and a number of things it should have been doing but wasn’t. It had a cost, half of which would be swallowed up by admin, and would be funded solely by businesses with no contribution from residents. It was rejected by a large majority. It was interesting to note that out of nearly 300 businesses almost half of the rateable value total was made up of just 15 businesses controlled by 12 voters.
My grandfather worked as chief superintendent of Eastbourne Power Station before and after nationalisation. Eastbourne was run by Eastbourne Borough Council until nationalisation and was one of the first, if not the first, to run street lighting from a centralised station. House lighting followed. Eastbourne also ran its own waterworks. They were successful for many decades so it is not impossible for local councils to run successful enterprises. But perhaps wokery and meeting climate targets has got in the way. I remember the wooden cooling towers of this coal fired station before they were demolished.
Is ‘running’ street lighting he same as ‘powering’ street lighting? I can imagine councils being ‘in charge’ of such lighting, but they are surely still connected to the national grid?
A really good article and humorous too…helps to make the dark situation we are in a little more palatable. This rubbish is just another scheme to run cover and distract from the lunacy that is net zero and ‘green’ energy. The political elites have betrayed us all, we need real change, let’s hope it’s not too late! I think a peaceful uprising is taking place but the elites and establishment will do all they can to stop it. The elderly and poor and disproportionally affected by high energy prices along with the destruction of our industry; it’s as if they are all working for the CCP…hmmm. Thanks DS for this daily dose of sanity!
If Milliband truly wanted to give control back to communities he would not want to take the taxes if the first place.
His ideas are all based on his redistribution of our wealth and income based on his priorities and preferences.
And those were only supported by a small minority of the electorate in 2024.