In the midst of all the eulogising about Thatcher, let's take the opportunity to take stock of the impact of her privatisation agenda on the UK power generation sector.
- 75% of UK power generation capacity is foreign owned, or to put it another way..
- 75% of profits from the privatised electricity companies go abroad
- 20% of UK power generation capacity is owned by foreign governments
- Germany owns more UK power generation capacity than is owned by UK citizens, companies and state combined.
- Nearly 70% of UK nuclear capacity is ultimately owned by foreign state owned companies
How did it happen that having unilaterally decided that the state sector was too inefficient to operate UK power generators, the UK instead ended up with 20% of these supposedly private sector companies being owned by those same state owned energy companies from abroad who were obviously so inneficient they were comfortably able to gobble up these UK electricity companies?
Impirical evidence therefore clearly shows that UK privatisation of its utilities was economic and political lunacy akin to flogging off the family silver at a carboot sale, then finding out that you have to rent it back for ever from your neighbours at vast expense because you actually needed that silver cuttlery to eat with.
Who owns the UK power generation sector?
To relate this to solar PV, at least with the systems we install they're owned by UK residents and businesses, so the operating profits stay in the UK rather than flowing abroad.