How a publicly owned Scottish energy company could reshape the debate
The Scottish National Party has set out a plan to create a publicly owned energy company that would generate, trade and supply electricity across Scotland, stabilising bills, accelerating the move away from fossil fuels, and keeping revenues inside the country. Annabelle Ewing, campaigning in Ochil and South Perthshire, has argued that energy policy is one of the areas where the SNP can act decisively if Scotland gains independence, while emphasising that energy is already partly devolved under the current constitutional settlement.
For readers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, or Adelaide, the debate will sound familiar. Australians have weathered their own energy shocks, watched the Australian Energy Regulator approve repeated retail price hikes, and continue to argue about the future of coal-fired generators across the National Electricity Market. A small, wealthy, northern economy with a long industrial coastline offers a contrasting test bed for many of the ideas now being floated in Canberra and the state capitals.
Comparing ownership models in Scotland and Australia
Energy ownership is shaped by different political traditions on each side of the world, but practical questions overlap closely. The Scottish model draws on a heritage of municipal and state utilities, while Australia's liberalised market was restructured in the 1990s to break up monolithic state agencies and encourage competition.
| Feature | SNP proposal for Scotland | Australian context |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | Publicly owned by the Scottish state | Mostly private, with public actors like Snowy Hydro and state generators in Queensland and NSW |
| Retail supply | New public supplier competing with incumbents | Choice of retailer, though default offers remain regulated |
| Generation mix | Wind, tidal, hydrogen and existing hydro | Coal still significant, alongside rapid rooftop solar and large-scale wind |
| Main goal | Lower bills and energy independence | Reliability, lower emissions under the Climate Change Act 2022, and price relief |
| Investment | Government-backed bonds and a dedicated national fund | The Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency |
What the SNP's consumer pitch actually promises
Annabelle Ewing and the SNP point to consumer protection as the headline benefit of a state-backed energy firm. They argue that a publicly owned generator with a public supply licence would absorb less profit on every kilowatt hour, allowing regulators to focus on quality of service rather than price gouging. The proposal also includes ring-fenced funding for fuel poverty schemes, a problem that resonates in colder rural constituencies like Ochil and South Perthshire where off-gas-grid homes rely on expensive heating oil.
In Australia, household anxiety is driven by summer cooling bills rather than winter heating, but the frustration is similar. Outer suburbs of Melbourne and new Brisbane estates have been squeezed by price adjustments since the 2022 crisis, and the debate about default market offers continues in federal parliament.
Energy security, jobs and the transition from fossil fuels
A central pillar of the SNP paper is the creation of a pipeline of green-collar employment in turbine manufacturing, grid maintenance, and retrofitting insulation across the social housing stock. The plan also reserves a share of contracts for Scottish supply chain firms, echoing the Australian government's Future Made in Australia programme and local content requirements for critical minerals processing.
The Scottish pitch leans on what officials call energy democracy, the principle that citizens, through their elected government, should own the means of generation. In Australia, where rooftop solar penetration is among the highest in the world and household batteries are increasingly common, a complementary case could be made for community-owned batteries in towns like Whyalla or Morwell, financed partly through public capital.
The constitutional wrinkle that Westminster imposes
Even with detailed blueprints, the SNP concedes that an independent energy company would sit on top of existing UK-wide electricity market arrangements. Wholesale trading is governed by British contracts, the GB system operator balances supply and demand across borders, and Ofgem sets network licences. Any Scottish start-up would therefore depend on negotiation with Westminster, a point Ewing often makes when arguing that only full independence can remove the constraint.
Australia's federal system raises similar concerns. The Australian Energy Market Operator runs the National Electricity Market across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, but the system stops at the Snowy Mountains when it comes to Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Coordinated reform often stalls because state-owned assets, private retailers, and federal climate targets pull in different directions.
Renewable potential and what it could deliver
Scotland's renewable resource is genuinely exceptional, with some of the best onshore wind capacity factors in Europe and a wave and tidal resource no comparable Australian state can match. Queensland, Western Australia, and South Australia all boast world-class solar irradiation, but their grids were designed around coal and now struggle with inverter-based generation as big baseload units close.
For Australia, the parallel question is whether public ownership can speed up transmission upgrades in regional areas where new wind farms cannot connect because of grid bottlenecks. The same patient-capital model could help extend the grid across inland NSW or southwest Victoria.
Governance risks, cost overruns and the Australian recent experience
A publicly owned generator could in theory be a long-term patient investor that does not need quarterly dividend growth, allowing it to absorb cost overruns on hydrogen storage, marine energy, or new transmission lines. Critics counter that disciplined governance matters more than the ownership label itself, and that any state-led just transition depends on transparent, ring-fenced reporting rather than trust alone.
Australia has recent experience of this lesson through the controversies surrounding Snowy 2.0, and through the slow rule-making of the Australian Energy Market Commission. Any SNP successor would need transparent cost reporting, independent audit, and clear performance milestones, or the political appeal of public ownership will not survive its first cost blowout.
Practical moves worth making at the household level
The thinking behind a public energy option can inform Australian consumer choices. Voters who find the SNP proposal persuasive may want to push representatives toward similar models, including Snowy Hydro-style storage or stronger community batteries in regional towns.
- Compare offers annually before the June demand peak in southern states, and switch if a better deal is available.
- Install rooftop solar where the roof orientation allows, using feed-in tariffs and the federal Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme rebate.
- Contact your federal MP to ask where they stand on a publicly owned wholesale generator or expanded storage scheme.
- Support community battery projects in your local area, especially in regional centres near existing renewable generation.
- Read the annual State of the Energy Market report from the Australian Energy Regulator to track prices and reliability outcomes.
Speak up through your local representative, your state member, or in public consultations run by the Australian Energy Market Commission whenever a major rule change is proposed, and back candidates who treat energy as a long-term public responsibility rather than a short-term political football.