MT26 Energy Seminar – Week 1: Should the state generate our power? Public ownership and public control in the GB electricity system

Dr Donal Brown

Dr Donal Brown, Senior Researcher

THIS IS AN IN PERSON AND ONLINE EVENT

Summary: Andy Burnham has resurrected the idea of the public ownership of energy from the margins into Downing Street, promising “stronger public control” over energy in his forthcoming ten-year plan. But does control mean ownership? This seminar presents preliminary results from new research on how ownership shapes the cost of capital in Britain’s power system to 2050. Because clean power is capital-intensive, the cost of finance is a major hidden driver of bills. Comparing private finance, public control and full public ownership, the talk will examine the potential savings that public ownership vs public control could bring to the future power system.

Speaker: Dr Donal Brown is a senior researcher in energy policy and political economy specialising in the governance and financing of the low-carbon transition. His work focuses on electricity market reform, energy demand reduction, and the delivery of large-scale housing retrofit programmes. He joins the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford following roles as Director of UK Programmes at Ashden Climate Solutions, and at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) at the University of Sussex, where he worked on the political economy of net zero and the institutional challenges of decarbonising the UK energy system.