Instead, Britain\u2019s electricity and gas industries are \u201cfragile, fragmented, comically complicated and hopelessly dependent on imported fossil fuels\u201d, Downing writes. On top of that, as consumers, we are facing soaring energy bills<\/a> amid a cost of living crisis.<\/p>\n Crowds admiring the electric lights on Victoria Docks, London, in the 19th century. From El Museo Popular, published 1887. Photograph: Universal History Archive\/Universal Images Group\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Unearthing how this happened, by exploring the history of Britain\u2019s energy industry, is the subject of Downing\u2019s book. It\u2019s one he lives and breathes \u2013 by day, Downing works as the director of strategy at Octopus Energy<\/a>, the UK\u2019s largest supplier of energy, but the book itself is written in a personal capacity.<\/p>\n Central to his argument is that this is a history a lot of us, even people working in the industry now, know little to nothing about. Yet it is instructive for the present, Downing argues, showing why we have the system we do \u2013 and, importantly, how we might change it for the better.<\/p>\n This summer\u2019s string of climate crisis-driven heatwaves<\/a> makes his book feel even more urgent. Although the UK has reduced greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> by 50% compared with 1990 levels, Downing explains: \u201cThe second half of the journey will be much harder than the first. All the low-hanging fruits have been picked, like deindustrialising and switching from coal to gas.\u201d<\/p>\n The wind turbines of the Burbo Bank windfarm in Liverpool Bay, off New Brighton beach. Photograph: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Yet debates about the energy system often happen behind closed doors, and part of his aim was to make it more intelligible. An economic historian by training and with encyclopaedic knowledge about energy, both shine through in the book, which charts how the crisis came into being.<\/p>\n His argument is straightforward: ownership matters. \u201cWho owned and controlled the means of making, moving, and selling energy shaped which technologies were developed, what infrastructure got built and the extent to which citizens and consumers benefited,\u201d he writes. Between 1926 and 1979, for instance, state-owned enterprises built huge infrastructure \u2013 from hydroelectric plants to power stations inside mountains \u2013 faster and cheaper than Britain\u2019s private sector companies today. The system has been privatised since the start of the 1980s, and despite the mess it\u2019s currently in, the orthodoxy tends to still be that private is always better than public ownership \u2013 cheaper, more efficient and more creative. Downing does not agree.<\/p>\n \u201cI tend to view things from the perspective of political economy \u2013 the institutions, the ownership models, the organisations and the people make the system,\u201d says Downing, who speaks with energising enthusiasm and expertise. \u201cFor me, the technology is interesting, but it is very strange to think of the [energy] system composed of inanimate objects, as if these things have agency and they don\u2019t. They\u2019re only there because of [human decisions].\u201d<\/p>\n The work of the Central Electricity Board: a general view of a power station control room, 1945. Photograph: piemags\/archive\/military\/Alamy<\/p>\n Downing\u2019s book charts four phases over the last 200 years, each given a chapter of its own. In the first phase, from the late 1880s to the 1920s, ownership of Britain\u2019s energy system was overwhelmingly public and municipal. This meant that even where private companies were involved, they were highly local, embedded in regional networks, and with municipal authorities making the decisions about how to plan and coordinate the gas and electricity system. The second phase, 1920-1945, saw government become a major owner and operator of some energy infrastructure. The third, from 1945-1979, saw energy nearly completely nationalised. And the final, before the mess of the system we have today, was characterised by almost total privatisation between 1979 and 2010.<\/p>\n Arthur Downing says the British energy system is now a \u2018dysfunctional hybrid\u2019 of public and private. Photograph: Verso Books<\/p>\n Although 1,500 energy entities were brought into two state-owned enterprises after the second world war, nationalisation didn\u2019t begin in the 1940s but rather started in that second phase. In fact, in 1926, it was the Conservative prime minister, Stanley Baldwin, who set up the Central Electricity Board (CEB) \u2013 a state-owned public corporation that built the first National Grid. Unlike now, this was done on time and at cost.<\/p>\n Downing says the energy system we have now is a zombie \u2013 a \u201cdysfunctional hybrid\u201d of public and private. For example, it remains privately owned but feeds off state subsidies, meaning few benefits of either model but most of the costs in that it is expensive and inefficient.<\/p>\n In February, Engie, the electric utility company in which the French government is the largest shareholder, bought UK Power Networks<\/a> (UKPN), which owns and maintains electricity cables in the south and east of England, from a conglomerate. On that very day, Downing points out, 10-year bond borrowing rates of the French state went down and the stock value of Engie went up, meaning every French citizen got a bit richer. It didn\u2019t play out the way the British media often claims \u2013 the bond markets didn\u2019t blink and the government didn\u2019t collapse.<\/p>\n Downing suggests Andy Burnham\u2019s early announcement of a VAT cut on energy bills<\/a> was a good first move. But if he could ask Burnham to do anything else, what would it be? \u201cShift the focus from producers to consumers, from investors to citizens,\u201d he says. This would include getting bills down by taking off levies, which are added to fund environmental and social programmes. But it would also mean looking at questions of ownership.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to Down to Earth<\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cPublic ownership was an extraordinary tool for building infrastructure at pace while delivering benefits for citizens,\u201d Downing says. \u201cIt can be again.\u201d<\/p>\n Electric signs outside the London Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus, July 1929. Photograph: J Gaiger\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Downing doesn\u2019t want a return to a 1940s-style system. Instead, he advocates for a mutualised system, meaning neither nationalised nor privatised. \u201cThe old labels don\u2019t fit,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe principle is that energy should be built around mutually beneficial relationships between capital, citizens and the state, with ownership and decision-making spread out rather than concentrated.\u201d What does that look like in practice? \u201cPublic corporations owning the networks and part of generation, councils and community schemes taking real ownership stakes in local infrastructure, and households owning solar, batteries and electric vehicles and being paid properly for the flexibility those provide. Citizens as owners of the system, not only customers of it.\u201d<\/p>\n The state would become even more involved in regulation, because regulatory institutions make the system more complex. For example, Ofgem is tasked with setting the price cap and assessing the components of bills but in many instances it doesn\u2019t actually control the costs that are accruing.<\/p>\n An all-electric signal box depicted on a Churchman\u2019s cigarette card, from a series titled Modern Wonders, 1938. Photograph: Print Collector\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Markets would still be involved. Natural monopolies \u2013 in networks and onshore transmission, for instance \u2013 would be publicly owned, while markets would stay for retail, electrical vehicle charging, home solar and batteries. \u201cPublic ownership and markets are not opposites,\u201d Downing says. \u201cThe Nordic countries introduced competition in [power] generation and retail shortly after Britain and kept extensive public ownership. China is running markets at huge scale within a publicly owned system. The US has the longest tradition of private ownership and some of the least competitive markets in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n To make such a change would require bold political intervention. Maybe the local aspect, which is a big part of Downing\u2019s proposal, appeals to Burnham\u2019s talk of devolution, nationalisation and reindustrialisation<\/a>.<\/p>\n Energy transitions are rare and protracted, usually taking around a century, Downing says, and if this were to happen, it would be the \u201cfirst all-encompassing rapid energy transition in human history\u201d. His book suggests it is possible. We just have to reject the British orthodoxy that says the state is useless in a way private companies never are.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a strange situation where we are OK with public ownership, just not by our own state,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788375975_580_500.jpg\")
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