GB Energy was one of Labour’s most popular policies in the general election and public support is still high with 63 per cent in favour of the creation of a publicly owned energy company.

Matching the public’s appetite for a retail option is key to consolidating the political appeal of GB Energy. Failure to do so risks a public backlash with 36 per cent of the public expecting GB Energy to decrease their bills over the next five years, and 53 per cent of those who voted Labour expecting it to do so. 

This polling is accompanied by a new briefing, by Principal Analyst Adam Khan, setting out how GB Energy can launch a supply arm to sell energy directly to customers, translating clean energy into lower bills.

An immediate priority for the new publicly owned company must be translating publicly generated energy into genuinely lower bills for consumers, both as an end in itself, and as the means for building durable support for GBE. 

To achieve this, alongside owning and operating renewable generation assets, the briefing argues GB Energy should include a customer-facing supply arm to help overcome inefficiencies and redundancies in the retail and wholesale electricity markets.

A "public option" retail arm of GBE would open up policy space to translate low-cost clean energy generation into durably lower bills, guarding against a repeat of the energy crisis. 

A GBE public option for retail electricity will provide a powerful lever to bring greater coherence to the current path of electricity system restructuring. This will allow for progressive pricing policies, in which poorer households pay less, and a gradual decommodification of electricity.

GBE’s retail arm would sell electricity directly to consumers and businesses and serve as the direct counterparty for Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) and Contracts for Difference (CfDs) with private renewable generators and GB Energy owned generation.

This initiative would bypass the wholesale private market and its marginal pricing system, allowing clean, abundant energy to be sold at low cost. The GB Energy retail arm will enable households and businesses to directly purchase their electricity from GB Energy. 

Forthcoming work from Common Wealth will further examine the details of the design of GB Energy, including how a public clean energy company can be delivered with genuine ambition.

[.quote][.quote-text]The public are clear. They want a retail option so people can buy homegrown clean power direct from GB Energy. What’s more, Labour’s new coalition expects GB Energy to cut their bills. The best way to deliver is to create a public retail option to translate renewable energy into lower bills and economic security.[.quote-text][.quotee]Mathew Lawrence, Director of Common Wealth[.quotee][.quote]

[.quote][.quote-text]To lower bills by the next election, bring greater fairness to pricing, and greater coherence to the power system, Great British Energy needs a retail arm.[.quote-text][.quotee]Adam Khan, Principal Energy Analyst at Common Wealth[.quotee][.quote]

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[.fig]Q1: To what extent would you personally support or oppose a policy to create...[.fig]

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[.fig]Q2: What impact, if any, do you personally expect GB Energy to have on your energy bills in the next...[.fig]

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[.fig]Q3: To the best of your own knowledge, and as far as you understand, which of the following do you feel BEST describes "GB Energy"?[.fig]

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[.fig]Q4: And if you could decide how "GB Energy" was going to be set up, which of the following would you personally MOST want "GB Energy" to be?[.fig]

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[.fig][.fig-title]Q5: And are there any other functions that you would personally like to see "GB Energy" fulfil?[.fig-title][.fig-subtitle]Excluding those who said "None of these" or "Don't know" to Q4[.fig-subtitle][.fig]

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[.fig]Q6: If you had the choice, would you stick with your current chosen energy supplier or switch your supplier to...[.fig]

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To view the full polling results, click here.