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Inside the UK’s Clean Energy Culture War – Chris Stark Explains | Everything Electric Podcast
01:12:42
In this episode of the Everything Electric Podcast, we sit down with Chris Stark, Head of the UK’s Mission Control for Clean Power 2030 within the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero. From building the UK’s energy dashboard to delivering...
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- [00:04]
Host
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Everything Electric podcast, where today we're in Glasgow to chat with Chris Stark, who is the new head of the UK's Mission Control for Clean Power 2030 within the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero. Now, for regular listeners of the show, you'll know that a few weeks ago I sat down with Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. And so this conversation is all around drawing on some of the threads that we started to explore in that particular conversation and actually start to look at the practical realities of delivering this Clean Power future. Now, we were driving around Glasgow, so I would say that my face throughout this interview is a little bit stressed. And I will say that it is more about driving in Glasgow than it is the topic of our conversation. All of that to look forward to, but first, a very quick advert break. Our three free YouTube channels on EVs and cleantech are funded by our fun packed test drivetastic events in Farnborough, London, the Southwest, the North, Melbourne and Sydney. Next up, we're in Canada for Everything Electric Vancouver and you for UK viewers, you can buy a battery electric vehicle or more at everythingelectric store. Back to the episode. Chris, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today in this slightly unusual format. For those listening, we are actually in the car and we're driving around Glasgow. We've been in the car for some time, we've already had a lot of really, really interesting chats, so we to make sure that we go over all of this territory again. But Chris, I wonder if you could kick us off by telling us exactly what you do and what it actually means.
- [01:42]
Chris Stark
I can do that and it is an unusual circumstance. So let me tell you about my unusual job. So I'm a year into a job now which is pretty unique, I think. So when the government was elected last year, they were elected on a pledge to clean up the power system by 2030. And I lead that mission, as we call it, for the UK government, working in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero for Ed Miliband. And it's great, it's very exciting to do it well.
- [02:19]
Host
I think what I find really interesting about your job as well is that you have technically you're head of Mission Control or Mission Control for Clean Power 2030, which sounds very cool, but when you say here, Mission Control, is that like a physical place? Have you got loads of dashboards looking at where is our power, what is our carbon, what does it look like?
- [02:40]
Chris Stark
So it is A physical space in the Department for Energy. So desnes, as we call it, we have requisitioned a bit on the ground floor very deliberately in a space with lots of screens to allow us to look live at where we are on this mission. Now we call it Mission Control. I don't actually love the term, I'm honest with you, but it's a good term because it cuts through and people understand mostly what we're trying to do here because the mission, we can't mess around. And if you want to build a clean power system quickly, you have to build from the ground up a good understanding of which projects across the country you're going to have and how you get them delivered quickly. So that's projects on the generation side, that's projects on energy storage side, and it's also the projects to build the network that we need, the grid. So we monitor that and we have built a thing that we call the dashboard. And the dashboard is mostly what we will look at in Mission Control. And I have a, a small team of 50 people that support me in that job. And we try everywhere we can to make that work well and get things done quickly. So it is a brand new way to do it. This is a different form of government and I'm very excited to do it for that reason alone, actually. But it's an exciting thing because we cannot waste time on this. So we are really in a hurry that is.
- [04:09]
Host
I mean, is this dashboard something that anyone can see? Is it something that would be worth sharing?
- [04:15]
Chris Stark
Well, we can't show it in its raw form because there's a lot of private data in there from mainly the companies that are developing these projects who have been very kind to share that data with us. But we are expecting, hoping to produce a public version of it that we will want to share that will give you that sense of where we are in a live way on this journey to 2030. And I actually feel that's quite important. So the job I did before this was a job leading a team of analysts and you see the power of that data you have other people can use it and can, you know, you find that. And it's that alone actually creates new stories and new different angles and things. So very keen on that.
- [04:57]
Host
I suppose that's the other thing I was going to ask you about because your previous role was head of the Climate Change Committee, which is no small feat whatsoever, but that role was much more around providing the data, setting the targets, and this is much more about delivery.
- [05:14]
Chris Stark
Yeah, that's Right.
- [05:15]
Host
How have you found that transition?
- [05:16]
Chris Stark
Well, it's partly my own ego that led me to do this, I suppose you could say, because I wanted to show that we could do delivery and not just, you know, advice. So I had an absolutely brilliant time at the Climate Change Committee for six or so years. At the time we were there, the ccc, as it's known as the statutory body that gives advice to government and to Parliament on climate, and we give the advice on the targets that the country set, the time. I did that job, we were raising the ambition in the country. So it was my team that did the analysis that led to the setting of net zero, the target. We did the analysis that justified it as a target. We set it, while science said you should set it and government listened. And tremendous as that was, you immediately feel the frustration of not actually being involved in implementing the solutions that get you there. And it was over that period that I got to know Ed Miliband, and we were talking before we started recording about Ed. The reason I know Ed so well is because he was very, very, very interested in the work that we produced at the Climate Change Committee and genuine sort of nerd about it. I think he would be okay with me saying that, because he read that analysis, he'd be in the annex of analysis. If you've read the reports at the ccc, they're tomes. So it's tremendous to be around someone who was that interested in our work. And that's how I got to know him. It was through no other reason than that. And he then asked me if I would do this job, and it's very difficult to say no to someone like that. This is the tedpole pledge for a new government who is very committed to doing something on climate, and I'm delighted to lead it, but it's very different, of course, and what we're doing is very different to what I would have been doing at the ccc.
- [07:11]
Host
So what's your relationship like now? You know, do you have a WhatsApp thread where you're just sharing pictures of solar panels and nerdy facts? You know, how does that relationship look like now that you're both on the same mission, both in the same team?
- [07:26]
Chris Stark
I mean, Ed's amazing. I love working for him, and he's amazing in all sorts of ways. I think the thing you've got to know about Ed is he did this job before, and it's pretty unique. In fact, it may be unique that a cabinet minister chooses to come back to do that job again, and in between led the Labour Party, of course, so he's had a whole kind of experience there that pretty unique too, and wants to do this job and you feel that hugely. And in the first 12 months. We're about 12 months to the day as we're speaking now. Since the government came in after the election, Ed did not mess around. He had a plan. He came in very clear what he wanted to see happen. We got going really, really quickly, including things like appointing me. And it's properly motivating being around someone like that. It's really exciting. And you see the power of, you know, the power of British government when it chooses to do something, is that it can get things done quickly. And that's what it's like being around Ed. He's. He's not messing around. Like, he wants stuff done, he wants it done quickly, he wants it done thoroughly. So we have a pretty deep relationship, Ed and I, and it stretches beyond normal working hours because he, you know, often most interesting work happens outside of the. So I spoke to him yesterday Sunday, you know, because he's. That's how he thinks, like he's what he wants. You switched on the whole time. I'm the same. So I sort of love working for him and I'm not sure I've ever had a boss like that, really. It's kind of exciting to be around. It's also very demanding, which is what you want. So, again, I'm very happy to do a job like that, knackering as it is.
- [09:14]
Host
And I should say that one of the reasons that I am driving and you're not driving is because it is so demanding. You told me that you have recently broken your collarbone.
- [09:27]
Chris Stark
That wasn't Ed. I want to make that very clear. He didn't lash out in a meeting on Clean Power. No, I jumped to catch a ball in a park near here. I live in Glasgow and, yeah, I just landed really badly and broke my collarbone for the first time. I've never done that before and it's the worst thing.
- [09:46]
Host
Oh, God.
- [09:46]
Chris Stark
So I'm three weeks later, I decided today I'm not going to wear a sling. And it's kind of liberating not to be in a sling, but, yeah, that's why I'm not driving. I don't think I can manage a steering wheel.
- [09:55]
Host
All elaborate ruse that, you know, have some time away from the office, I think.
- [10:00]
Chris Stark
Yeah, exactly. Any excuse. Because it's always sunny in Glasgow as it is today, as I'm sure all of your listeners and watchers know.
- [10:10]
Host
It is absolutely honestly, it's such a beautiful day and I was, I was telling you that the last time we were in Glasgow was to film an electric fishing boat. We traveled through Glasgow and then we carried on up to Tavialock and it was absolutely sensationally beautiful. We just couldn't believe it. And once again the sun is shining. It's totally gorgeous.
- [10:28]
Chris Stark
Well, I'm pretty glad you weren't here yesterday.
- [10:30]
Host
Yeah. And it wasn't quite so fabulous but I suppose in this interview because it was only a couple of weeks ago that I sat down with Ed Miliband and I really wanted to use that to see, well, A, to see what we covered and B, to see what came up in the comments and what are some of the things that we could continue to explore in this particular conversation. And there are a few things that came up. Ed Miliband said that he, you know, his one wish was that we can go faster on all of this stuff and I'd love to explore that in a bit more detail. There were, we started to touch on things like how divisive this narrative around climate has become and how we need to overcome some of that. And then I think there's this huge delivery challenge of actually how can everyone be brought along on this journey and how can we marry up these huge top down systemic changes of how we produce energy with these bottom up side of it as well of how people engage with net zero in their own households. So easy, easy, easy things to discuss as we drive around this beautiful city. But I suppose from your perspective, before we get into all of that, what are your biggest things that give you concern? That you know, your worry beads.
- [11:44]
Chris Stark
So there's quite a lot of them and it's quite interesting doing a job like mine because we are trying to do something unprecedented at a pace that hasn't really been achieved before. And I'm aware of that all the time. So you can approach a job like mine in two ways. One, you can worry about all the problems or two, the way I try to approach it at least is to focus on the good stuff that's happening. And we've really, I think we have moved the dial in the last 12 months so we came in quick with a plan. I had worked on this stuff before so it's good that I sort of had a sense of that. And we were therefore able to get going really quickly. We did a big piece of analysis with what's called niso, the energy system operator, which sort of framed up the challenge for us, which is really important because that was us working with the energy system operator. They were telling us, like, you could have a clean power system. We, as the people who operate the system, can conceive of that. But they were also saying, like, if you wanted to do it, you've got to be right at the edge of what's possible. So that was very useful. We did that analysis very quickly and then we turned that into a plan, which we call the action plan, which basically is about us seeing across each of the technologies. So offshore wind, onshore wind, solar, all the battery technologies, the storage technologies and the networks that we need to build, we're going to push right to the edge of what we think is possible in the knowledge that that is super difficult but probably worthwhile. And therefore, you ask me what I worry about? Well, I worry about the big stuff at the moment is what I'm worrying about.
- [13:12]
Host
Yeah.
- [13:13]
Chris Stark
So the big projects that we need to get to clean power, we've defined clean power as not 100% clean because we recognize that the power system we have at the moment has a lot of gas in it. And it'd be weird to shut that down, given the useful service that it provides, because it's basically what facilitates all the wind and solar, because when the sun shines or the wind blows, you can ramp gas back down again. So we're accepting that. We're saying is we want to have a clean power system that is 95% clean. So in that year of 20, 35% or less of the generation will come from fossil fuels. So that's the framing. If you want to get to that kind of outcome, you need to focus first on the big stuff. So that means building a network and we are doing historic build for grid that we really could have done with over the last decade or more. These are big projects in difficult bits of the country, some of them, and we need to get them through the system and through the planning system properly so that people feel they've been consulted properly. That worries me. And then the other big projects are particularly offshore wind projects. So we had a good. Every year there's an auction, and last year we had a pretty good auction, although I would have preferred more offshore wind to come through it this year. As we speak, we are weeks away from opening that auction in August and that's going to have to be a success for us because we need to see offshore wind come through, because offshore wind really does become the backbone of the whole power system. So everything is sort of high stakes at the moment. But at the moment we've been focusing on the big stuff, and I hope what we've been doing over the first year is sort of clearing the decks, as I sometimes call it, in the policy space to allow all this stuff to happen. And you're really going to see an increase in the pace and acceleration after this year from all the work we've done to reframe the regulatory environment, reframe policy, get everyone marching to the same beat. And I'm excited about that. So we're going to move into a different phase where I'm less worried, I hope, about the big stuff and I'm newly worried about the small stuff, which is where I think most of the marginal gains are going to come.
- [15:30]
Host
And obviously, a couple of years ago there was a. An auction which was not successful. So what's been done to help ensure that this one will be successful? Why does it look different?
- [15:41]
Chris Stark
So you're right. So every, every year we have what's called an allocation round, an AR. So, and they're. They're numbered sequentially. So AR5, which is just a couple of years ago, was a failed auction for offshore wind. We didn't get projects through. And the reason that happened is because the price that we set, which caps the price that we expect to pay, wasn't high enough to support those projects to come through. And that tells you a story, I think. So that really shook the confidence of a whole industry, which we had been building ahead of almost every other country in the world, the offshore wind sector. And we came in last year with AR6, fresh with that knowledge that we couldn't have another failed auction. And actually we did pretty well. So particularly the onshore technologies and the offshore technologies all are in the same allocation. Right? The onshore technologies did tremendously well. So that's solar and onshore wind mainly. But we also got offshore wind through, which is. And that was very, very important because it sort of starts to restore the confidence of that industry. That industry is buffeted by a global worry about whether there will be support for these technologies. A lot of these are global companies. Some of them have interests in the United States and real change in the environment there for those projects. So this, I think, more than last year, this year's round, AR7 needs to be the one that fully restores that confidence. So you asked me what we did. We pushed through as much as we could. We gave a very strong signal that we supported this stuff. Again, we had a strike price, as we call it, administrative strike price, that facilitated new developments and they Came in at much bigger scale. Because of that, we're going to need to do similar things this year, I think, to really land the idea that offshore wind is back. And that matters because the confidence of investors is in turn driven by how much uncertainty they see. And the more uncertainty that there is, the higher the premium that's required to finance all these investments. And we need to knock that right back down to low levels again so that the consumer pays less for these projects. Basically, we need to see that benefit come through to the consumer.
- [17:58]
Host
And this could be a really stupid question, although no such thing, I will say, but locational pricing, something that's hotly contested, how much? I mean, what are your personal perspectives on that, first of all? And second of all, how might that impact the strike price for offshore wind?
- [18:21]
Chris Stark
So let me give you. We are weeks away from making a decision on this. And let me say, I think in this country, I don't know there's anyone who's more keen for a decision to be made on this than me, because I'm spending a year now talking about both sides of this. But we haven't made that decision yet. So let me at least talk about the issues. I've described myself as zonal curious, and I continue to be very curious about zonal. The idea that you set up different price zones across the country that more accurately, I suppose, match supply and demand is very appealing. Somebody's an analyst at heart, you know that I can see the real advantage of that trouble with it is that the implementation of it is also an uncertainty. So there might be a future where that's the sort of system you want to run. We also want to. For Clean Power 2030, we want to do historic levels of investment. So that's the kind of classic tension here, which we will resolve shortly with a decision. But that uncertainty then manifests in a higher risk premium, basically, for an investor. So we need to resolve that by giving a clear decision on this, I think, before we go into the next allocation round, and I hope that's where we'll end up, that will then reduce the uncertainty to investors. And I think basically I am zonal curious because I think you can do what we need in both worlds, where you maintain a single price across the wholesale market across Great Britain, or a zonal set of zonal prices. But both of them are different, very different routes to that goal of clean power. And you need to have different policies and regulations in place in both worlds. And my interest, frankly, is in making sure that we make a quick decision on that so that we can frame that up properly.
- [20:08]
Host
And presumably because that is such a huge change in terms of how electricity is priced, will that be wrapped into broader electricity market reform?
- [20:17]
Chris Stark
Yeah, so I think it's Route 1 to reforming any of this is that you first start with the wholesale market. That's the market where the fundamentals are traded. And this is about that. And it's a process that predates the government led by Labour Party. So there's a three year history to this and it's one of these things that you can be. And I recognize this in particular my old job as an analyst, you could endlessly look at it and analyze it and model it, but actually at some point you've just got to bite the bill and make a decision about it. And then a lot of the further reforms hang off that. So it's quite tricky to tell you which way it will go because we haven't got a formal decision on it yet. But what I can tell you is that in both worlds there are a set of reforms, either a zonal world or a single GP price that will follow. It will make it easier for me to do what needs to be done for clean power, but also clearer what sort of experience the consumer will have over this period. I don't think sometimes the advocates for zonal make the point that you need it to then do some of the cooler, sexier stuff at the consumer end. I don't think that's true. So, you know, I think we can get on with. I'm very, very keen on us seeing more flexibility in the demand side. We hope it's consumer led flex and the idea of consumer leading it is very much at the heart of that. Zonal isn't required for that, but equally if we have it, it's the thing that it'll be the background to that change. The change of the consumer side is what I'm really keen to get into.
- [21:53]
Host
Well, perfect segue because when you look at What Clean Power 2030 requires, I think it's 4 gigawatts you're anticipating from demand side flexibility. So what people are generating at home, vehicle to grid, how they're feeding back into the grid, et cetera, et cetera. And I suppose this is the really interesting and challenging thing about your job in that we have again this top down systemic change of how we generate electricity, but also asking consumers to fundamentally change their homes, how they think about energy and consume it and actually how they pay for it as well. And when I spoke to Edmond Abandoned last week Or a couple of weeks ago, he said that he wanted to go faster, that we need to kind of people need to understand what a heat pump is and living, you know, understand that living with it is not hair shirts, but it is a way to have a better, more comfortable home.
- [22:44]
Chris Stark
Yeah.
- [22:44]
Host
And yet at the same time, we're acutely aware that there are many people who are adopting these technologies who can afford to do so, and there are many other people who understand that these technologies may be good or have advantages, but simply cannot afford them or are in rented properties. And that becomes its own challenge. And frankly, these are also the people who would benefit most acutely from having the lower energy bills associated with some of these technologies. So you have this huge task of retrofitting all of these homes and making it possible for everyone to go on this journey, not least to achieve that 4 gigawatts of power. How on earth do you begin?
- [23:27]
Chris Stark
Well, so I think, again, I'm very much of the view that if you only see the enormity of it, then you won't get going at all. Right. So I'm all about consuming the elephant, but basically I think you should start with the tusks. Right. So you start with the most difficult stuff. The reason we're trying to clean the power system up quickly and, you know, isn't it at like 2030 and for such terms as tomorrow?
- [23:50]
Host
Yeah.
- [23:51]
Chris Stark
So, you know, we're going to push as hard as we possibly can on that. And I absolutely think a clean power system can be achieved by 2030, if you adopt the definition that we've taken of it. The reason we want to do that is because we don't expect the demand for electricity to grow substantially until after 2030. So if you look at the projections that we have power demand in the country, we're looking at British electricity consumption, it's pretty flat between now and 2030. Within that, there's quite a lot of change happening. So we are seeing an increase in demand for EVs. We're also seeing households probably get more energy efficient. That's basically as they replace their fridges and things. And there's a bit of extra industry demand coming through there. But if you net that off between now and 2030, it's like a slight increase in power demand. So cleaning up the supply of it now really makes sense because after 2030, if I'm right on this, and we pursue net zero largely by electrifying the British economy, we might even get a doubling of that power demand after 2030. So if you think that through getting to the point where in 2030 you're ready for that. That's the kind of logic of this, really. And then you don't need to do silly things like open new gas fired power stations and regret it for 20 years. We should be doing it through clean sources at that point. We'll be ready for that. The new nuclear that we've funded in the spending review will be in the2030s. These new forms of generation come on too. So what's interesting in that story, I'm telling you, that's a very top down story. What I also would like to see happen more than anything is that we get beyond that, into the changes that people want to see in their lives that facilitate that. If we were to have more demand for electricity because people are moving to heat pumps and EVs, I'd be delighted. It actually helps me tell the story because you can match that up very nicely with renewable generation. And that's the sort of stuff that I think we need to move on to. So we've talked about consumer led flex, consumer led flexibility in the power system. What that means is people and businesses choosing to use electric technologies rather than fossil fuel technologies and then benefiting in some way from that being part of the clean power system that we're building. And what that means in reality is let's just talk about households. I would love to see more households with solar on the roof with batteries installed in those households with heat pumps with EVs. And that is a flexible power system that allows those devices that consume that electricity to consume it when the wind blows or when the sun shines. And that to me is tremendously exciting. So although we've got this 4 gigawatts in there, as you say, of consumer LED flex, I'd love it if it was higher. So that actually right now helps me build more of the stuff on the supply side. But we've got to tell a story here that works. And at the moment, if you're rich enough to have these devices, you can have it now. You can drive your expensive ev, you can have a heat pump, you can have a whale and sheathed the house, have solar panels, you can have a battery. You almost need to flip that on its head. We want to drive those benefits to those who can least afford it now. And that seems to me is the most exciting thing of all. And that's not about climate, that's about giving people a better deal in life. And that seems to me could be brilliant in terms of driving the overall ambition of the country and people's perception of this being something that is about them. It's not about the climate, it's about improving their lives. And I'm very excited about that. So that is all encapsulated in what you might call consumer LED flex. And that's seems to me it's not a great framing for it, but that's what we're going to. That's what we're going to work with.
- [27:47]
Host
So what do you think we need to do to accelerate that shift and to make it, you know, to really drive home this message? This is around that flexibility, taking control of your power and this being a good thing?
- [28:00]
Chris Stark
Yeah. I mean, I think almost the last thing you want is me coming to tell you about Net zero and climate. Right. I think we've got to sort of have that in the back of our minds that what we're doing is about that, but it doesn't need to be the only reason for all this to happen. And what I would rather do is extol the benefits of having this stuff in homes or in businesses and seeing people wanting that rather than for climate reasons wanting to see this stuff up, because actually it's just the future. So what do we need to do? Well, I think we probably need to reframe this. This is about an improvement to people's lives and that we in the government are supporting that with the sorts of policies that will make that happen. We've got this thing, the warm homes plan, which is. Which is about this. This is about making warmer, more toasty homes with electrical technologies in it, basically that. And that we will focus on those who can least afford to install those things. That plays very, very well with these new offshore wind farms that I wanted to open. I want to see happen with the grid that will facilitate that, but people don't. I think the worst thing in the world would be for people to wake up every day and think the way I do about the world. I think it seems to me that we want to take away that thought from them, that we are building the kind of power system around things that are improving their lives in their home, in the knowledge that it's fully clean and also that it's supporting British industries that are making these things. Now, that is a story I think we can tell and it is happening now. So we want to be able to, I think, generally make people feel that there is a new thing happening that is benefiting their lives and that their benefit to the climate, for example, is just one of the benefits that comes with that.
- [29:42]
Host
Because there is at the moment, you know, a huge misconception of some of this. And I'm going to say stuff, by stuff I mean the benefits of clean energy, climate change, etc. Etc. And there are some crazy stats, and I think this is from the carbon breed, that people think that net zero will cost 28% of GDP when the reality is more like 0.2%. So it's a, it's a figure that's wrong by about 14,000% or something. Extraordinary. There's also facts around. You know, 80% of people kind of are bought into clean energy, but 57% of people fear that bills are going to increase. So there's just a lot of tension it feels. And I just wonder if, you know, when we hear things like net zero, people conjure a graph. And obviously we need to get people towards thinking about net zero and thinking about the benefits of what that means to your wallet, to how you live in your home being more comfortable. And that needs to be done really, really quickly before this becomes an even more politicized issue. Yeah, how are you thinking about that as a department and how are you coordinating with other departments to kind of think of this in a really holistic way?
- [30:50]
Chris Stark
So I think the net zero goal is as fundamental a goal for the country as any because it is literally a change across the whole economy. But it is that framing that leads to the difficult politics that you talked about because people hear that and think it's an impossible mission. And the reality of it is it's very achievable. I mean, what we. And I'll cast back to my old job in the climate change committee. Now, if you want to achieve net zero, what you've got to do is deal with the fact that in day to day life all around us in cities like this, there are people using fossil fuels for their lives in ways that benefit them. And what we can do is tell them you can't have that. So we, that's never going to work. So what we're doing is progressively replacing those fossil fuels with something else. And that is a story of progress. It is also a story that although I'm in a very hurry, I'm very much in a hurry to achieve it doesn't need to happen in one fell swoop. So we're largely replacing the things around us that use fossil fuels with something cleaner. And that cleaner thing is usually some sort of electrifying electrical device. So we're in an EV today that is a very good Example of a technology that replaces a fossil fuel version of itself. What we want is for people at the point when they sell their car to start thinking about buying an EV or renting an ev. And that idea of this being an overall replacement of things rather than a sort of big upturn to people's lives, is very much, I think, how we will achieve a successful transition. And as you say, if you look across all the things that need to be done for net zero, what that looks like is a huge investment program for the country. We've got to do a lot of investment in things, some of which cost more, some of the things which cost more than their fossil fuel cousins. The general payback is that in using Those things like EVs, the running cost of it is lower. So if you look across as a country, there's a sort of investment challenge upfront and then a benefit in the use of those assets, which you think of as capex capital expenditure up front and then OPEX saving, operating expenditure saving after that. And you see that right across the whole economy, so in the heat pumps and the electrified technologies that businesses use in the transport sector. So this is the period when we do the investment and then we get the benefit after that. And that is the difficulty of this framing is that we're in the point now where we have to sort of dial up investment. And I work on clean power. That's probably the area where you see that most now we need to invest historic levels of capital expenditure in that sector in a way that really could do with. And framing that properly so people don't think of it solely as a cost is very difficult. There's no doubt about it. So I think we're going to have to tell a different story. That this is about essential investment in the country. It's the fabric of the country that we're doing here also that we're not going to come and rip out gas boiler. All this sort of very violent language that often gets us. This is about a natural replacement cycle of stuff. And you're going to want these things. Like the different technologies that will get us to net zero are things that people will want. And I think that again, as you picked up in this thing, I haven't mentioned claim at once. I think we've got to. People do care about climate change in this country. It's Generally my experience, 15 years and more of working on it, but it's probably not their principal driver of things in life. And what they want to see is that things are happening and feel reassured by that, but they mainly care about other stuff. And I think we can talk about the benefits of the things that get you to net zero in different ways. So for me, the stuff I work on, this is as much, if not more so about energy security than it is climate security. It is definitely about British industries producing the technologies and the components that we need in this new power system we're building. It's the jobs that go with that. And it's about a reduction in bills. We've got to get focused on that because if people start to use cheaper electricity, it's going to make it a hell of a lot easier for us to get heat pumps installed across the country. So sort of building the narrative around that is, I think, a better way than telling them that we're saving the planet, even though we are.
- [35:19]
Host
Yeah. And I suppose this is always going to be the challenge of investing now in order to realize lower energy bills in the future. That sounds great. But if you're feeling the pinch right now, that can feel like quite an annoying thing to hear, I imagine. And I wonder how from a, I guess even from a branding perspective, how we even talk about energy security, how we can take people on that journey so that they're allowed to think and enjoy in that long term view of things.
- [35:47]
Chris Stark
I think, you know, one of the best communicators at all on climate is Arnold Schwarzenegger, of all people. And like, he's, I find him fascinating because he's, you know, he's sort of right of center, sort of big in all ways American. And he talks about EVs. He's like, I like them because they're big.
- [36:09]
Host
Yeah.
- [36:10]
Chris Stark
Like I like them because the torque you get from an EV is better than a gas part, as he would call a gas car. It can carry more weight. You know, his politics and his framing of it is about abundance.
- [36:25]
Host
Yeah.
- [36:26]
Chris Stark
And I sort of, I think we should probably learn a thing or two from that, actually. We're often quite po faced about the environmental stuff. We should do less of this. But actually, most people want to hear a story about what the country's doing in terms of us moving to a future where the constraints we have at the moment, which are largely driven by the fact we don't have enough fossil fuels. We've been through a period where it's the gas price that was set largely because Russia invaded Ukraine, that led to abject misery in this country. And there's nothing much we can do about that unless you are not dependent on fossil fuels in the first place, I actually think that future of abundant, mostly renewable power, this is a wonderful place to have wind in particular and the freedom that comes with that is a framing that we should embrace. And yes, we are investing in that kind of future. We're going to, we're going to get to a place where very quickly. I hope we don't really need to worry about some of those things so much. And I think that would be. It's going to make people who work on climate and environment, it's going to make our jobs a hell of a lot easier when we get to that future. And yes, we're in a difficult phase now, but the other part of this, and I generally find this when certainly I meet people, is that people definitely understand the need for the country to get going on this and we are definitely in the difficult phase of that. But we also need, like, we should celebrate the fact that we're doing something exciting. I mean, we are trying to. With my stuff on clean power, there isn't really another country in the world that's trying to do that. That's UK leadership and we're going to feel good about trying on this. I feel we should be proud of trying something like this.
- [38:12]
Host
And I know that I'm being slightly, being slightly contentious partly because I know that so many people listening to this podcast are so bought into the mission. And I think the concern comes from like, okay, well, we're really bought in. How can we ensure that that message continues to spread? And you know, you've painted a picture there of abundance, of that certainty of having low energy bills, et cetera, et cetera, and the UK leadership in that as well. And yet there are some people that think that what you're doing is a very bad thing.
- [38:41]
Chris Stark
They do.
- [38:42]
Host
Why? Why do they think it's a bad thing?
- [38:45]
Chris Stark
Well, I think it's. I mean, I'm a civil servant, not politician, so I try. But I observe the politics of this from a particular standpoint and there is definitely a very obvious thing that has happened in the last few years where net zero has become. I think it's interesting when you often hear politicians talk about net zero, they put the word agenda at the end of it now.
- [39:08]
Host
Yes.
- [39:09]
Chris Stark
So that tells you something because it's not an agenda, it's a sort of scientific goal that I'm afraid you're going to have to reach. If we don't reach global net zero, it's very simple. Temperatures keep going up.
- [39:18]
Host
Well, it's a non negotiable planetary boundary.
- [39:20]
Chris Stark
Because basically we keep adding to the thing that causes the planet to get warmer. So that's what net zero is. The idea of it being a national target, I suppose, is slightly more contentious, but it's not that contentious. We've got vast proportion of the world's GDP now sitting under some sort of net zero target. So you see this thing happening, particularly in the Asian economies. It's become very obvious to me that they are pursuing the transition much more quickly than we are in the west now. So the sort of weirdness of it is, I think, that it's been captured as a sort of framing in British politics, not just in Britain, but in British politics for a lot of stuff that people don't want to see happen for whatever reason. And I think it's very unhelpful because the net zero should have a more fundamental point to it. But I think you just gotta. You've gotta play the game as you see it. So it has become an unhelpful term, general take on it. I think there is a feeling, wrongly, that it's about telling people what to do with their lives. And I think I'm very much of the view that we can provide that. Point about abundance is just one way of describing it. But this is about facilitating a whole load of stuff that people really want. I mean, I think we're in this car, an EV is, I think, clearly better technology. And I realize I'm playing to the audience when I say that, but it is obvious when you get in an EV that it's spare technology that we need to sort of build the case that that is true in other aspects of net zero. I think too, it's definitely true in renewables. It is definitely true that a home that is heated from electrical technology, whether it's a heat pump or even just electrical heat, allows you to be more flexible in the way that you heat that home in a way that you couldn't with gas. So there's a sort of story here about progress, which I think will help us combat the politics of it. But I'm not going to deny to you that it's difficult. I mean, the last five years things have changed immensely on this, and we've got to keep swimming with that.
- [41:15]
Host
I think it's so interesting because you're so right. Like, you know, if you were to take any kind of politics out of this, it'd be like, how do we convert energy from one form to another in the most efficient way that we can, in the cheapest way that we can, and in a way that is fundamentally comfortable and capable. For example with a heat pump, the fact you can have your heating on all day for someone like myself who is constantly cold, that is dreamy. And yet we often don't talk in those terms. And without talking in those terms, that's when the opportunity to, to create that division arises. But I wonder how much China comes into this because you mentioned there that this is an opportunity for British industry, for British industry leadership. And that's definitely true. But also in working towards net zero, we are also very, very dependent on supply chain overwhelmingly concentrated in China. And I wonder how you think about it as a department in terms of okay, we are exposed for a short period of time as we procure some of these materials to basically a single market versus okay, we should also diversify that and build a homegrown battery industry or battery cell technology industry. And also whether that over index on China helps facilitate some of the political division as well.
- [42:40]
Chris Stark
It definitely does. I mean let's just, I promise I'll deal with China, but let's just set it aside slightly and say that it's not good for us to be dependent solely on any one country in this transition and we want to have as much diversity as possible because essentially that's an insurance. Just to go back to again some of the climate framing. You actually see that climate change itself makes it more worrying when you are linked to one geography because climate comes along and destroys supply chains with a flood, that sort of stuff. I think what's been interesting looking at China again over the 15 years or so I've worked on these issues, China has over that whole period been pretty singularly focused on building up the supply chains that we're now seeing them dominate in. You go back to the Beijing Olympics 2008, there was an attempt because of air quality issues when Beijing hosted, to move transport more quickly onto battery vehicles and most notably the buses. And they didn't quite make it. So in the end I think the buses were hybrids rather than fully full battery electric. But right from that point onwards this sort of idea that they would build a supply chain for EVs in China only was landed and rooted. And I think I'm right in saying that to this day they don't produce any fossil fuel vehicles in China. So there's a sort of, it is solely built around the idea that battery was the future. And that is the thing. I have no deep desire for us to replicate China, but that very clear sighted view that this was obviously a technological race that was going to be won in one direction. And sticking with that is something I think we could learn from. There is a direction to this. It's nothing to do with climate. It's to do with the fact that the technology is clearly going to win. And that is what has led them to stitch up supply chains for all this stuff. So clearly. And it's fundamental as well. I mean, you talked about batteries, for example. The minerals required for net zero globally are not really rare earth at all. They're just kind of new mineral supply chains. China owns an extraordinary proportion now of the processing of those minerals which come from all around the world. And that is again because of very clear sector view. And we I think need to just come to some sort of accommodation about how much of that we want to see in this country and how much of that we don't. I mean, in the, in the future we will be freed from many of the geopolitical problems that we have at the moment because we are not so dependent on importing fossil fuels. That's going to be the number one thing. That idea of building a renewables based energy system, energy system, not just power system, is the thing that will free us up from that. And in this country it will be wind that's the dominant source, along with a bit of nukes. And we will be more free also of some of these supply chain issues in that future. But I also feel we should own some of that. So, you know, the idea of building stuff here, having located here, the production of some of these key technologies is not just a sort of nice to have. I think it's essential. We've got to make that happen. And that is what traditionally in this country we haven't done so well. And that is what China is doing much better than us. And just to deal with China one more time, and the other thing with China is that they have the production facilities for this. They are also in their own energy system pursuing the transition to something cleaner much, much more quickly than anywhere else in the world and at bigger scale. So yes, they are opening new coal and that I think is a question they should have to answer for. And that is definitely driving the climate problems that we see all around us now. They are also in a slightly schizophrenic way, pursuing transition to cleaner technologies more quickly and at bigger scale than anywhere else in the world. So if you look at EV rollout for example, or solar and wind rollout in each year, and this is not the first year this has been the case. They're putting more on their system than the rest of the world combined. And they are also producing that stuff and we have to be aware of that. If you take your eye off that, you will miss that. They are pursuing that strategy for entirely self interested reasons. It's not to do with climate. What helps it is to do with the fact that these are better technologies which they produce and lead to a more efficient economy at the end of it. And we should also be doing that. So I've been talking recently about us being overly focused on the petro states and we should be more focused on what I've been calling the electoral states and China's well on the way to becoming one of them, so should we.
- [47:29]
Host
And what does an electro state look like to you?
- [47:32]
Chris Stark
So an electro state is one where you've got, you have built your economy largely around the production and use of electricity and you are doing so because that is generally a much more efficient use of the energy that's produced from that. And that leads you to all sorts of wider gains, the consumer gains that we've talked about, but also the productivity gains to the economy. And that is because, and again, this EV is a good example of this. It uses that electricity, that energy much, much, much more efficiently than a fossil fuel car would. You could tell that because the bonnet of this car is not going to be roasting hot when we get out of it and that is wasted heat in a petrol car or diesel car. So that is the future for an electric state is that you are across the economy seeing that efficiency gain. And it also happens that the newer technologies that go with this tend to be, you know, smarter technologies. That leads to a whole other story about a more digitized economy that goes with that. So that is what an electrostate is in my mind. And they will be the successful states of the future.
- [48:32]
Host
So you kind of alluded to it there. You know, the interesting thing I think about climate change and about energy security is that it's not something that you can pocket off into sort of one box. It's so pervasive. It impacts every, every single other thing that we do. It impacts, you know, health outcomes, for example, it impacts food security. The list goes on and on. And I wonder how collaborative you are alongside other departments and how you're able to, you know, action some of this stuff because there is that holistic view.
- [49:05]
Chris Stark
So again, I'm not going to lie, it's difficult, right? So there are lots of things to do in government and lots of priorities that do compete. But the challenge of net zero is such a fundamental one that it cannot be done by one single partner alone. And therefore you've got to have other bits of government that have an interest in this. And you're framing and the question, I think you've framed it the right way that they're unlikely to be so driven by the climate outcomes and much more likely to be driven by the wider outcomes. So you've mentioned health, for example. We do see those health benefits that come largely from things like cleaner air, warmer homes, better insulated homes. And that therefore means in terms of preventative health outcomes, that is something the Department of Health is interested in. I think if you work through the various departments in Whitehall, there isn't one that doesn't have some sort of stake in the net zero story. Overall, the ones that we are most aligned with are the ones you'd expect. So the Department for Transport, which has a very work through plan for moving the whole country onto electrified transport. And that is now happening and you see it all around us, particularly in cities. I always think that's where you see it with those green registration plates and the charging infrastructure. The next phase, this is probably the part for housing. So mhclg, which is the most unwieldy of the names. Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government. That's the Housing. Housing Ministry. And this idea of better insulated homes with solar panels on new homes and heat pumps in those homes, you could see that perfectly framed in the future Home standard. And that is all about sort of using the power that we have in government to drive these longer term outcomes. So future Home Standard is quite an interesting one because it's not. That's for new properties. So these are properties that we build today that will be around for the next hundred years. If we're building in solar panels, mandatory solar panels on the roof and no gas boiler, then clearly you're sort of locking in that future for the country. And that is the right way, I think, to think about how we should be going about things. But it's hard not to find a bit white hole or wider government that doesn't have some stake in this. And you've just got to keep reframing the arguments so that everyone stays focused.
- [51:23]
Host
Let's Fast forward to 2030.
- [51:25]
Chris Stark
Yeah.
- [51:26]
Host
And you've achieved 95% clean power by that point in time. You've popped open a bottle of champagne with Ed having a little cheers. But what does the country actually look like and what will it feel like?
- [51:40]
Chris Stark
Well, there's different ways to answer that question. I mean the first thing it says, it's going to look like this, right? I mean, this is a kind of fundamental shift. And I'll just briefly talk about the wider goal of achieving net zero, if I can, because like we did the work back in 2019, I think it was 2018, perhaps on net zero while I was at the Climate Change committee. And the way the Climate Change committee works is you've got a committee of experts that the team works to and does the analysis for. And one of those experts, I remember memorably around the table before we'd agreed the final package of things that we were going to publish and the analysis said, what sort of world is it? You know, and what's interesting about what we were able to show is that it was the same. People's lives were the same, so they could still drive their cars, they could still, you know, they have largely the same jobs, they'd be still flying off on holiday each year. That was very much within the carbon bud. And there's a bit of that with Clean Power 2030, I think too. This is not some huge shift in people's lives that we're talking about here, but what we will see is a big shift in the stuff that's behind the meter that people are not thinking about, hopefully. So we'll be generating power in a totally different way. And you could think of this as being the sort of final stage of the story of us moving away from a power system that was planned around coal, turning the grid inside out. So I occasionally describe it. So we're moving to a world where instead of us focusing on the places where we used to have coal seams and coal power system and coal fired power we're going to be moving to, particularly the seas around Britain being the primary source of power generation that will happen over this period and we need to build a grid to facilitate that. So in certain parts of the country you will see grid infrastructure that's not there and that is definitely one of the more difficult things in this story. Overall, it is essential that we do it and it is not carpeting the country in pylons, but you will see some of that infrastructure and you'll also see some new onshore wind. Again, well sighted sites and you'll definitely see some solar. We've done more in the last year to consent solar than the last decade before that probably. So you'll see some of that in the country. But it's interesting how little land that's going to take up. So there's a whole story about solar dominating now, which is not true. So, but we'll see some of that. I think the main thing though is you'll also see on the consumer side, at the level of, you know, people, I would hope, a shift in the way that we, you know, move to becoming a more smart energy system. So brilliant companies like Octopus are already sort of pioneering a lot of this stuff, but we're going to move definitely to a more smart system in homes. And again, I'd like to accelerate as much of that as possible. And I think that's the positive story rather than that being a frightening thing. That's going to be where all the benefits are. So some of that I hope will be around in 2032. But mainly, I suppose I don't want, I would prefer us not to see too much of this actually. I think people need to get comfy with it being actually not a big shift in their lives. This is mostly upstream of people's lives and, and therefore should be quite an easy thing. The big question is, can we get to the point where we reduce bills through this? And that is something I'm very, very keen to see happen.
- [55:09]
Host
So I guess two questions off the back of that then. So firstly, when do you think we will see lower bills for households?
- [55:18]
Chris Stark
Well, bills have within them a whole host of costs that need to be recovered. So you think about the actual bill that you are paying. Your electricity bill has within it all the costs of the system that are recovered over time from the consumer. So all the network costs, all the costs of building that network. It also has the cost of generating the electricity in there. And at the moment it's the cost of gas that's driving the bill to be high because gas is the price setter in the market. So we, as we displace gas with more and more renewables, we will displace its price setting rule as well. So the more wind farms we can get on the system under a long term contract that we find through an auction, the better. Right. So that we take last year more than 90% of the time it was gas that was setting the price in the market. We need to take that down to as low a level as possible and we think we'd get down to probably a third of the year compared to be set by gas, still too high. But that will have a tremendously big impact on bills. The other thing is the gas price itself may fall. So that's the other. But that's not a policy you can pursue because that price will be set globally and Then the other thing we can do, if you think through those system costs, we are doing a lot of investment in that system. So we want to make sure that that isn't an immediate cost to the consumer. So that investment is what facilitates these new cleaner power sources. But we can spread the cost of the grid over maybe 40 years so the consumer gets the benefits up front of that investment, but the cost gets spread out over future decades and that then facilitates more and more of the renewable stuff that then brings down the price. So that is the logic of it. What does that mean in terms of what the consumer sees? It does mean we're in a difficult phase where we're doing the investment and we're trying to get a lot of this stuff through. But I'm pretty confident that you'll see some of those benefits more quickly. So we're paying extra. We have been paying extraordinary high prices for electricity because of the gas price. As the gas price looks a bit softer now as you, as it starts to come down and as we start to implement these policies that bring more and more renewables on the system, that has an immediate impact. And I think we'll be able to tell the story more clearly hopefully this year actually about that starting to filter.
- [57:41]
Host
Through into bills and I suppose actually, you know, the more distributed and self distributed power and self generation that there is also people start to feel that more acutely as well, which I know I need to ask you about the consultation on solar car parks, for example. Yeah, what is that and what's the benefit to everyday people?
- [58:01]
Chris Stark
So with solar car parks, slightly weirdly to me, that's taken on one of the most consequential things that we've done in the first year. To me it feels like a no brainer that you've got something like 20,000 car parks up and down the country that could have solar on them and that that solar could be feeding directly into charging stations for the cars that are parked there. Other countries in the world have done this better, there's no question about that. If you go to Germany, for example, you'll find a car park that doesn't have solar and be above that. So we're consulting on that. But the big challenge that we need to address is not so much the concept which seems to me pretty locked in, it's how we make sure that those things are grid connected. So in terms of what we're doing at clean power, that is also the big challenge. So grid connections are the biggest single barrier to us having a clean power system.
- [58:51]
Host
Yeah.
- [58:52]
Chris Stark
And if you look at the grid connection queue, so right now we're in this car, we could come up with a project, you two of us. It'd probably be a kick ass project.
- [59:02]
Host
I think it would kick ass project.
- [59:03]
Chris Stark
But we would, we could, you know, we could imagine a bit of the world. We want to put solar and then we can go and get a grid connection. And you don't need to do too much more than that. You've got to create a company and go and, you know, have a realistic prospect of building it, but you then join a queue. And the point is about that queue is that it's grown tenfold in the last five years.
- [59:26]
Host
Yeah.
- [59:27]
Chris Stark
And that Hue is first come, first served. So the really exciting stuff that we've done with the Cleve power target is to say, well, hang on, that's just not going to work for us. So we've set out a goal across the key technologies, including solar, onshore wind, offshore wind batteries, energy storage technologies. We've aimed high in all of those. And then what, what we're going to do is turn to the queue and look into the queue for the projects that are best able to deliver those numbers across the country. So we'd set a national goal for those things that we've then turned into a regional goal for onshore wind and for solar. And then we use those regional goals to reorder the queue.
- [60:13]
Host
I see.
- [60:14]
Chris Stark
And the really exciting thing about that is you pull to the top the projects that are most able to, to deliver the strategic outcome that we're seeking. But also, and as we speak, we're a few weeks away from this, we are also looking for the projects that are most commercially ready to deliver it. So they have the planning. So they have done more than sit in a very nice electric car and come up with a project. They've actually got the patch of land they want. They're ready to go with this. They might even have started work on it. So what we're trying to do is look for the projects that are most ready and then we will give them an earlier connection date. So we're doing that with Miso, the empty system operator. Full credit to them. They've done an amazing job of going into that queue and reordering it. And this year, this calendar year, by the end of it, we will offer all the 20, 30 projects there connection dates.
- [61:01]
Host
Oh, my goodness.
- [61:03]
Chris Stark
That is how we'll go quickly on this. And it's super exciting. And that will include some of those car parks that we talked about, because they're able to get this very, very good replaced about solar. So we need those that are able to connect quickly to be connected the quickest.
- [61:19]
Host
I suppose the thing that's interesting in the solar car park context is that actually it makes these technologies much more visible to more people in more communities and to experience a benefit that potentially that makes the charging cheaper, but also their cars cooler because they're not exposed to the sun. Now, the other thing I've still got, I've got. Still got two things that I need to make sure I ask you. The first is that I know many, many, many people listening to this podcast are extremely keen for a future in which we decouple completely the cost of electricity from the cost of gas.
- [61:54]
Chris Stark
Yeah.
- [61:56]
Host
Is that possible? Is it feasible? And if it is, why are we still talking about a grid in which the cost of gas will determine the cost of electricity some of the time? And I suppose the final bit I'd add to that is because, yes, we need gas to some extent for dispatchable power for baseload, but with a sufficient number of grid scale battery storage, there is a future where that might not be necessary.
- [62:21]
Chris Stark
Correct. So that's the future I want too. So just to bat some numbers around, we've got 35 gigawatts of gas on the system now. Doesn't matter if you know your gigawatts from your megawatts. That's a lot.
- [62:32]
Host
Yeah.
- [62:33]
Chris Stark
And that gas power comes from what they call the dash for gas. In the 1990s, we had a lot of gas coming up the North Sea. It made sense for us to build power stations at that point that were using it and that actually facilitated the move away from coal. But it turned out, it turned out that in the end, it also facilitates the move to renewables because gas is so flexible. So you can ramp a power station up and down, so you've got a lot of wind on the system. You can use less gas. If you need the wind stops blowing, you can ramp it up. So rather than rejecting that, my sort of take on it is that we should try and make use of it. So the 35 gigawatts of capacity that we have is. Well, that's not going anywhere. We're going to have almost all of that by 2030. The goal is to use it less, so to reduce the running hours to less than 5% of the total in 2030. That's our central challenge that we've set. Now we come to the question, could you do more to remove gas as its price setting role, because that is essential for all sorts of reasons. And yes you can. So in raw terms, the more renewables you put on the system, every time you put a new renewable project on the system, we're displacing a little bit more of that gas. Just that alone moves us to the point where gas is setting the price less frequently across the year. But what I want to do is go further than that. So we want to have other technologies that offer the similar property to gas, that is the ability to generate or produce electricity when you need it. And in particular there's a set of technologies called long duration energy storage, or ldes. Now LDES is a very technical term, but that is classically something like pumped hydro storage. But it might be newer technologies like flow batteries. Or you get this very appealing technology called liquid air, which is basically a form of compressed air. So you compress the air and separate into a cold store to hot store. But you do that when the wind is blowing and then you can let it back out again to generate electricity when you need it. So those sorts of technologies are very helpful in a renewables based power system. They're very helpful in displacing gas as well. So we will displace gas by having more clean alternatives on the system. We'll also displace gas though by having an alternative to that gas fired power station when you need it. And that will reduce its price setting role in the system as well. And you know, we've got to do all of this at once essentially. And you mentioned batteries. It may be that batteries alone can do some of those things. Typically we think of batteries as being much shorter duration. They also do different things in the power system like help set the voltage at the right level and do things in microseconds rather than, you know, rather than hours. Yeah, but it's possible that those same lithium ion chemistry batteries will be able to do eight hours plus storage, in which case that is a real rival to gas as well. And one of the cool things about my job is we're going to find out, we're going to try our best to see which of these technologies succeeds and it will all progress us more quickly away from gas having that price setting role. And I don't think you need to do massive change to the market for it to have that kind of impact. I almost feel we don't have time for that anyway. So I'd rather just get the stuff on the system. The basic, the secret of what I'm doing is that we're in a pretty unusual period where we're building on top of what we already have. Rather than having to face difficult decisions about closing things, we're just putting new things on top. And that's the beauty of the next five years or so is that that is the challenge. After that, definitely we will have harder questions about what we do with gas. And I would like to be in a position where we can say no. We've justified and demonstrated that we could do without it.
- [66:26]
Host
Now that's so interesting because I think so many people listening to this will be thinking well we need some sort of reform to decouple it from a market perspective. But what you're saying is with sufficient volume of new stuff on top, actually that will happen as a serendipitous by product.
- [66:41]
Chris Stark
Yeah. Some modeling we've done shows you that gas will still set the price, but it will move from 98% of the time to less than a third. And if I'm right on these newer technologies having that price setting rule instead, then we'll have demonstrated that over those, over those, over the five years still to come. That means that the modeling is wrong. So gas will have an even less of a role potentially in setting the price. It'll still play a role. I mean, I think the point about gas is that you turn to it last in the market because is the thing that you can reliably turn on to match supply and demand. That is why it has its price setting rule. Whatever you turn to will have a similar price setting rule. But I would like it to be something clean. And I think these LDES technologies probably are the most obvious case of where we will turn. Instead of a gas fired power station, we'll let water down a hill or we'll let that compressed air out of storage to generate electricity.
- [67:43]
Host
And the other thing that, you know, you mentioned that 2030, in many respects it will look exactly the same. We'll probably see a few more renewable energy sources generating but our lives should feel more comfortable, our energy should be smarter. Other than that it won't be this huge sort of systemic shift. So is this slightly contentious phase that we're in just that, just a phase that we need to get through?
- [68:09]
Chris Stark
I think it is just a phase. I think particularly with the power system, I think mostly this stuff is not going to touch people's lives. I do think the phase after that as we move to electric cars on roads being the normal, there's a bit of disruption to that, not much. Yeah, we would say that wouldn't we, we're in an ev, I drive an ev, you drive an ev. And I, you know, absolutely sure it's a better future. So there's a sort of easy argument there. I think when you look around us, we're in Glasgow, very proud to live here. I love this city. But one of the things that characterizes Glasgow, it has this old building stock, the tenemented buildings, tenement buildings that we have around us, these sandstone buildings. There's red sandstone and blonde sandstone. These are not easy to retrofit. So we're gonna have to get to. That's the difficult stuff. And, you know, ideally for a city like this, you probably want to be doing something like district heating, the sort of thing that you find on the continent quite commonly.
- [69:06]
Host
Yeah.
- [69:06]
Chris Stark
But we're not at the point where we're able to offer that as an option to people yet. So I understand the fear of the change that's coming. I do see how difficult it is to conceive of it. I mean, we've done this before. We did it with gas. I mean, we laid gas in every city in the country. We're going to have to do something similar. So I think, I often think this, because this is a city that was built by the Victorians, you know, essentially Victorian masterpiece and the way they laid it out, we might need to get a bit more Victorian about our ambitions here. You know, sort of laying things out properly because we see that future and reveling a bit in actually how big the challenge is and how much. Well, we've tackled it. I think that's something the Victorians would have done. But there aren't that many of these things to do. Right. I mean, I think the essential thing here is that mostly what we need to do to get to Net zero and clean up our power system, our energy system, is very manageable stuff. This is not some sort of war type effort that's required for this. It's just about having a clear plan and making sure that each stage we keep focused on it.
- [70:13]
Host
Do you know, I think you are the first person who has ever come on this podcast and said that. And I find that so reassuring because you're probably the person in the UK who is most in touch with the data and understands the problem probably most comprehensively. I've used to be like, well, you know, it's doable, we just need to get on with it.
- [70:35]
Chris Stark
Yeah, I mean, it's very difficult to do if you try and do it all in one go. Yeah, but that's not very That's. That's not going to be a successful strategy for us. So, you know, the 2050 framing is interesting because if you think about it like the average life of a technology that you buy today that has fossil fuels is about 15 years. And the 2050 framing, just pause on that, if that's the case, then knock 15 years off 2050, you get to 2035. What that means is that around the middle of the2030s, that's the point when we've got to stop selling the stuff that burns fossil fuels or at least start moving away from it at a scale. And that, to me is quite a convenient framing. I mean, that gives you 10 years to get your act together. And of course that's doable. Of course that's doable. And the point is that people want to move more quickly than that. And that's why I'm very optimistic about the transport transition, because this stuff is better. And we'll win the argument, I think, overall, in the end, by demonstrating that this is an improvement to lives and not an imposition.
- [71:37]
Host
Well, I think that is the perfect note to end on. Thank you for being a very willing passenger in this magical mystery tour of Glasgow that we've done today. And thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
- [71:50]
Chris Stark
Thank you for having me and thank you for coming to Glasgow.
- [72:00]
Host
Thank you so much to Cross Chris for taking the time to join us on this podcast and for dealing with my slightly chaotic driving through Glasgow. Thank you also to Polestar, who very generously lent us a car for today's podcast as well. Before you go, if you could do us the honour of liking subscribing, sharing with a friend, all of that good stuff, we would so appreciate it. It really does mean that we can carry on telling the cool and important stories in this clean energy transition. But that's it. If you have been. Thank you for watching and listening.
- [72:30]
Chris Stark
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