WHEN the chairman of one of the world’s largest energy companies starts saying the best way to tackle climate change is to ramp up our electricity usage, you have to question his impartiality.
Take Ignacio Galan, chief executive of Scottish Power’s Spanish owner Iberdola, who when announcing his company’s results yesterday suggested the world was at a “tipping point” when it comes to electricity usage.
“After 25 years of encouraging people to use less electricity, now we know the best way to tackle climate change is to use more over the next 25 years,” he said.
Coming from the boss of a company that in the UK still sees 60 per cent of its power come from thermal plants the statement may seem counterintuitive.
Yet look at what has been happening across Scottish Power’s generation arms and it begins to make sense: in 2017 the amount of power coming from thermal sources fell by close to 30 per cent while the amount coming from renewables rose by roughly the same proportion.
Taken in that context Mr Galan’s statement could be seen less as a sales pitch and more as a mission statement.
Indeed, with the company pledging to close its final coal-powered plants and plough more money into renewables it is easy to envisage a not-too-distant future when consumers ditch their fossil-fuel powered cars in favour of cleaner-energy ones.
As Mr Galan said: “More and smarter power will enable us to decarbonise faster as we electrify the economy where it matters most now – in transport and in heating.”
To achieve its own decarbonisation goal Scottish Power has committed to spending €6.1 billion on green and smart infrastructure over the next five years.
The problem is that one of the side effects of historically high carbon usage - global warming - is already dampening household power demands. If that were to continue it could impact on such ambitious spending plans in the longer term.
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