It is time we took the generation of power into public control

YOUR front-page article "Winds of change: power giant goes 100% green " (The Herald, October 17 seems to have fallen for Scottish Power’s spin on its decision to sell off its gas and hydro plants. Reading the detail of the decision, the company will still supply its customers with electricity from non-green sources if its wind power fails to generate enough power – for example, on non-windy days. So, it is not 100 per cent green. In fact, if that were its intention why did it sell its hydro plants? These would have given it a balance between two green sources – wind and hydro and made it less likely for it to have to turn to non-green sources to keep customers supplied. One is forced to conclude that the company’s decision was made for purely commercial reasons which were dressed up as environmental for the press.

For us to achieve carbon-free electricity generation we need to have a national plan which will invest in creating the correct mix of different sources – wind, tidal, wave, hydro, solar, nuclear and storage technologies so we can always balance our sources of supply with our demand. I believe this will only be possible with a nationalisation of the power generation companies. At the moment power generation is in private hands with each generating company making decisions based on their own commercial needs. This has, for example, led to a rush to adopt more and more wind power without considering the risk that over reliance on this one volatile green source means that we are ever more likely to face a situation where we cannot balance supply and demand thus leading to power cuts. Only by having power generation owned by the nation can we look at the overall mix of generation and make the investment decisions required to balance the system.