Dieter Helm

Monday

Dieter Helm

Can Britain’s grid take the strain?

33 min listen

The way we use energy is changing. As electric heat pumps and electric vehicles become more popular, and as the government tries to phase out fossil fuels to reach its net zero target, some estimate that our electricity demand will increase by 50 per cent by 2035. But can our energy system take that strain? Cindy Yu is joined by Andrew Bowie, minister for networks at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; Sir Dieter Helm, professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford; Fflur Lawton, head of policy and public affairs at Smart Energy GB; and Anna Moss, senior consultant at Cornwall Insight, an energy consultancy. This podcast is sponsored by Smart Energy GB.

Thursday

Dieter Helm

New paths to power

The energy debate is stuck in a rut: all politicians seem to be able to talk about is a narrow set of existing technologies — coal, gas and nuclear power stations, supplemented by wind farms and rooftop solar. Each of these technologies has its own lobby, and they fight each other for subsidies. Should we, like Germany, build more coal power stations, or go for a big nuclear programme, embark on another dash for gas, or build lots more wind farms on- and offshore? In one sense this is not surprising. The abiding feature of the electricity industry over the past century has been its lack of technical progress. Coal power stations are 19th century.