Energy - Shaun Povey

He joined the Greater Lincolnshire LEP last year as a Director and Chair of the Energy Council. In this blog he discusses the focus of the Energy Council and how it’s working to overcome the challenges the sector is facing.

Since joining the Energy Council last year my focus has been on exploring how our regional energy sector can help to support regional growth and net zero ambitions.

The energy sector is unique as it underpins all economic activity, and we know that delivering low carbon, affordable and reliable energy is crucial to improve business viability and support growth across all our sectors. For our residents and businesses, it is imperative that we work closely and collaboratively with academia and our local authority colleagues to support delivery of projects which reduce fuel poverty and carbon emissions.

Our councils and research facilities are already working hard on determining the scale of the challenge and how to transition to suitable low-carbon infrastructures whilst minimising impact on our natural environment, and I am pleased to say that we are already trailblazing a highly joined-up approach that will focus on growing our regional energy sector in a way that provides the expertise and capacity needed to tackle those challenges.  

In the north of our region, we are gifted the ‘Energy Estuary’ in the Humber, where a massive focus on the energy sector is located.  This is where a world-leading offshore wind industry and nationally significant projects are located and making waves in some exciting carbon capture and hydrogen projects, such as Humber H2ub and the Humber Zero projects.

At the Energy Council, we believe that the scale of the opportunity is vast.  And so, we are also looking at ways in which we can assess and support the growth potential across a range of sub-sectors, including bioenergy and biofuels, battery storage, geothermal, smart energy systems, retrofit and energy flexibility.

To date, these technologies have typically been promoted for use in urban and densely populated environments, but we believe there is a specific opportunity to promote Greater Lincolnshire as a region in which to invest, pilot, and innovate at pace and scale to bring a suite of technologies and solutions in rural contexts with largely dispersed populations.

To accelerate this growth at the speed required, we have plans to develop an Energy Sector Development Plan, to take a deep dive into the current state of the energy sector across Greater Lincolnshire and assess the real growth potential for many of our inspirational core energy and sub-sectors. Our goal is for that intelligence to fuel our focus on targeting specific investments into the region to bring new growth, new jobs, and the high skills to match our ambition, whist solving specific energy provision challenges.  By growing our energy clusters, we know that there is more potential to unlock and to drive further growth and interest.  

To succeed in this challenge though means that the question of training and developing talent cannot be understated. We need to develop a consistent pipeline of skilled workers whilst also ensuring that those already working in the industry are adequately trained in the latest technologies. The Energy Council recently commissioned a skills analysis to highlight the range of career opportunities presented by the regional energy sector, aligned to the scale of opportunities that are likely to become available in the next five years.  And so, for the next phase of this project we will be working with the Greater Lincolnshire Careers Hub to promote those opportunities to young people across Greater Lincolnshire where we have already made great strides in linking businesses with schools and colleges to achieve this.

This is a truly exciting story to tell and one which I do not tire of promoting.  This industry will bring well paid, highly skilled, and incredibly demanding and challenging jobs to the region whilst supporting the critical global transition to low carbon energy systems.  

Luckily in Greater Lincolnshire we already have some great organisations such as CATCH, which is a cutting-edge training facility dedicated to supporting the sector and are positioning ourselves as a UK hub for clean energy.

But for the energy sector to thrive and net zero goals to be achieved, there is an imperative need for crystal clear vision and strong policy from central government, along with long-term funding support as new markets and solutions emerge and develop. I strongly welcome the introduction of Great British (GB) Energy to be chaired by former Siemens CEO Juergen Maier, which I believe will begin to provide and underpin that structure, and the Energy Council will be connecting with the new administration soon to make our case and bring local solutions.  

I am confident that the future of Greater Lincolnshire energy is very positive, where clean, reliable and affordable energy is available to all, based on a thriving energy sector bringing benefits whilst providing great career opportunities in well paid jobs.  More personally, I would love to see more of a focus on the community schemes run in tangent with the bigger strategies and am fully supportive of efforts to ensure our communities who host energy infrastructure see additional benefits from that.

With net zero targets high on the agenda not only for the government but also for businesses across the region, the focus on renewable energy is more important than ever. The Energy Council is committed to driving forward affordable and reliable energy provision for the whole Greater Lincolnshire area, whilst also promoting economic growth, providing this via a whole-system and clean energy approach.

Find out more about the energy sector here.