After years of public dissatisfaction and the obvious failures of privatisation, marked by the collapse of over 30 energy suppliers since 2021, the Conservative government has decided to take a first step to partially nationalise the British energy sector. The government announced in April 2022 that it would re-nationalise the Electric System Operator, a division of private energy company National Grid. In its place, a publicly owned ‘Future System Operator’ will be set up to operate energy grids from 2024 onwards.19 The new public body will be responsible for managing the planning and distribution of Britain’s electricity system to prevent supply interruptions. While the Conservative Party is framing the partial nationalisation as essential to reach net-zero emission targets by 2050, the move attests to the recognition of a wider failure of the UK’s privatised and fragmented energy sector.

Calls from trade unions and activists to take back public ownership and transition to renewable energies are getting louder, with 66 per cent of the UK population supporting nationalisation of the country’s energy system.20 The trade union UNISON is advocating for the nationalisation of the big six energy retail companies. This would mean transferring over 34,000 energy workers from private companies into public service employment, allowing the state to leverage this workforce to promote a transition to renewable energies.21 In 2019, UNISON, GMB, Unite and Prospect, the UK’s four main energy trade unions, published a list of demands to protect energy workers’ jobs in a just transition to renewable energy. These include, most importantly, greater influence for unions and workers affected by the transition, granting them a voice in policy-making and the opportunity to contribute to solutions.22

A further proposal for public energy ownership has been brought forward by the We Own It campaign organisation, which advocates for a public takeover of public services. Instead of a government bailout, We Own It advocates for nationalising Bulb and other energy companies. The campaign’s petition to nationalise energy outlines four further actions to reclaim public ownership, including:

1. Nationalising the Big Five (SSE has now been absorbed by Ovo Energy) energy suppliers, which would cost the state approximately £2.85 billion
2. Taxing giants BP and Shell at the same rate as Norway: a permanent tax rate of 56 per cent
3. Setting up a new state-owned renewable energy company to invest in wind- and waterpower while creating public jobs
4. Nationalising the energy grid, which would bring expected annual savings of £3.7 billion, and would pay for itself in under eight years.23

Democratic and public ownership of the energy market was a central proposal of the 2017 Labour Party programme, when the party was under the leadership of socialist Jeremy Corbyn. The Party’s 2019 proposal ‘Bring Energy Home’ introduced plans to fundamentally transform the energy sector, bringing gas and electricity networks back into public ownership and incorporating participation of energy sector workers and consumers.24 The plan proposed setting up a National Energy Agency that would own and maintain transmission infrastructure, alongside establishing regional and municipal energy agencies. In the proposed two-step transition process, Parliament would transfer assets into public ownership and former owners would be compensated with bonds issued by the Treasury. In line with We Own It’s calls for returning grid ownership into public hands, this switch would save the government £3.7 billion a year, meaning the investment would pay for itself within seven and a half years. Profits would be reinvested into renewable energies, expanding the UK’s renewable energy sector and decreasing its dependency on imported gas.25

With the Labour Party now under the leadership of Keir Starmer and adopting a more moderate political programme, it is unclear how much of the 2019 plan would be advanced should Labour win the next general election. However, Starmer’s Labour did recently commit to establishing a new publicly owned energy generation company named Great British Energy, tasked with accelerating new renewables investment.26 Research by think-tank Common Wealth estimates that this could reduce electricity costs by £20.8 billion or £252 per household a year.27 Considering that over 3 million people in the UK live in fuel poverty,  according to 2023 government data,28 this would be a much wanted reduction.