Freedom Of Information (FOI) requests to environmental regulators have shown that millions of litres of oil are seeping into UK soil from outdated electricity cables. The thing with privatised energy utilities is that they fail to invest in new infrastructure. That’s because the companies are guaranteed profits from people’s need for energy, while investment sets revenue back. Private borrowing is also more expensive than for the public sector.

Privatised energy causing a “huge problem for the environment”

The Guardian revealed that a private electricity company has spilt three million litres of oil over the past 15 years into Southern England. UK Power Networks owns such cables where the oil inside them helps keep them cool. But as the cables get older, they begin to leak that oil into the environment. The cables were mainly developed in the 1950s-70s under public ownership and the company hasn’t replaced them.

In 1990, the Conservative government privatised UK Power Networks. A Hong Kong based conglomerate CK Hutchison Group owns the electricity distribution company, meaning that dividends the multinational pays to shareholders are not even taxed in the UK.

From 2018-2022, UK Power Networks made profits of £2.4bn while failing to invest in ageing cables. This profit ultimately comes from higher consumer bills. That means every business and person in the country could pay less if the distributor was publicly owned.

Dr Susmit Basu researched the cable spillages between 2015 and 2018. He described the leaks as a “huge problem for the environment”. Greenpeace campaigner Lily-Rose Ellis agreed, saying:

This is really concerning and is yet more evidence of the urgent need to update our crumbling energy infrastructure. These cables are at best outdated, but some are virtually antiques and are urgently in need of replacement. The UK electricity grid was designed and built for the energy system of the last century.

Happening in Scotland too

The single biggest oil leak was in Edinburgh. One Scottish Power Energy Network (SPEN) cable leaked 24,000 litres of oil in late 2023. Oil reportedly hasn’t been used to insulate cables for 40 years, underscoring how ancient some of the infrastructure that these private companies are maintaining is.

Another foreign company, the Spanish Iberdrola, owns Scottish Power, which SPEN is a subsidiary of. In 2024, Scottish Power’s net profit was £1.2bn.

It turns out it’s not just private water companies causing environmental damage through spillages. Electricity companies are doing the same. We need to renationalise our utilities, as soon as possible – after the disaster of privatisation.

Featured image via the Canary

By James Wright

This post was originally published on Canary.