GB Energy has opportunity to lead on new tech, says Labour donor

Labour donor Dale Vince has said the party’s planned state-owned energy company has the potential to lead the development of new technologies, but also stressed he was not seeking support for his own projects. 

The founder and owner of UK energy company Ecotricity said Labour’s Great British Energy company could also “make its mark” by helping to foster a national programme of solar rooftop installations to boost clean energy supplies.

The eco-entrepreneur is one of the party’s most generous supporters having donated £5mn over the past 12 months, including £1mn on the day after the general election was called.

His support has helped Sir Keir Starmer’s party to reduce its reliance on contributions from trade unions, some of which are concerned about its plans to stop issuing new oil and gas exploration licences.  

Speaking to the Financial Times, Vince said: “I don’t see GB Energy competing with the private sector for wind farms and that kind of stuff. I don’t see that it needs to. But what it could do is invest in and dominate, and in effect lead a new technology.” 

Asked if he would be seeking support from GB Energy, Vince said: “I don’t want support for my projects, I’m not interested, life’s too short to be chasing money, it really is,” adding: “I just want to see change.” 

Formerly a big donor to the anti-fossil fuel campaign group Just Stop Oil, Vince has urged voters not to back the Green party in the election on July 4, arguing that Labour needs a large majority to enact its plans.

Setting up a state-owned energy company is a key plank of the party’s “green prosperity plan” under which, if elected, it plans to invest £5bn a year over the next parliament to increase the UK’s supply of renewables and energy efficiency. 

Labour, which has a lead or more than 20 points in opinion polls, has put energy at the centre of its campaign, pledging to cut carbon emissions from electricity generation to net zero by 2030 — a target that some industry experts believe is unrealistic.

About 32 per cent of Britain’s electricity came from gas-fired power plants last year, with more than 55 per cent from low-carbon sources including wind, solar and nuclear.

GB Energy, which will be based in Scotland, will “deliver clean power by co-investing in leading technologies”, according to the party’s manifesto, as well as supporting capital-intensive projects and local energy production. 

Vince said there was scope for the state-owned body to create a “national programme” in various different areas.

“We’ve studied the solar potential of rooftops in Britain . . . GB Energy, or the government itself, could lead a programme of national solar rooftop installation alongside energy efficiency, and I think alongside batteries as well,” he said.

“I think it’s there that GB Energy could make its mark,” he added. 

Ecotricity supplies energy to roughly 200,000 UK homes and businesses and also generates electricity from wind and solar farms dotted around England.

Last year, the company built a “green gas” plant in Reading, Berkshire, which uses anaerobic digestion to turn grass into biomethane. Vince has argued that grass-to-gas is a “big opportunity” as a solution for low-carbon home heating and is planning further plants.

The company is also working on a tidal power project off the south-west coast of England. “It’ll be tricky to finance the first one,” Vince said.

The Labour donor said he had met Starmer “probably two or three times” but had known Ed Miliband, shadow energy secretary, for several years through his political work. 

“Over the years we have been in touch quite frequently,” he said. “He [Miliband] is a good guy. He gets it.”