Allegations of decades of under investment in Sark’s electricity grid have culminated in an ambitious plan to buy the island’s privately owned power provider, with a view to putting it in the hands of the community.
The current owner doesn’t want to sell Sark Electricity Ltd though, and there is some political opposition to the plans too, but that isn’t deterring those behind Sark Community Power who maintain their plans would benefit the entire island community if they come to fruition.
What those behind Sark Community Power want to do is buy SEL, assess the entire grid, make any immediately necessary improvements to ensure the safety of everyone in the island, and eventually move the power station away from its current location and upgrade the entire network.
The plans have been years in the making, and they’d dictate island life for decades to come if they come to fruition. Not only would it be the largest investment Sark has made in its infrastructure in living memory but jobs would be created with engineers and labourers having to relocate or commute to the island to carry out the long term work suggested.
Any upgrading of the power station and grid could also see Sark embrace emerging technologies at a much earlier stage that the other Channel Islands, allowing it to claim ‘green island’ credentials, to go along with its ‘car-free island’ and ‘Dark sky island’ status.
Those developments are all a long way off, but members of Sark’s government and community have told Express that the island needs to take a large step forward now, with the purchase of SEL.
Sark Electricity Limited
SEL is privately owned, and always has been, making Sark the only Channel Island which does not have a publicly or government-owned power provider.
This dates back to the immediate post-World War II era, when Chief Pleas first sought someone to provide power to the island.
A Mr Robson was appointed in 1947, and he started work to install the first diesel powered generator in the island. This was an ‘army surplus searchlight generator’.
The following year, two residential customers were connected to Sark’s grid.
Mr Robson is understood to have agreed wayleaves with various customers that were not formally recorded, meaning access was granted to allow their homes to be connected to the grid. 55 people were connected by the end of 1949, with larger generators being installed to cope with the increased demand.
SEL began to replace the individual generators that many people had prior to that time, with the advent of television throughout the 1950s reported to have led to further demand.
In 1969, Tim Gordon-Brown bought SEL and the company remained in his family’s ownership until 2020, when it was sold following the death of then-MD, and son of Tim, David Gordon-Brown.
Witney-Price is the owner today – an investment company owned by Alan Witney-Price who has previously lived in Sark and is now based in Guernsey.
The price of power
As SEL is the only electricity provider in Sark, every home and business must be connected to the grid or run off its own generator.
Many of the properties across Sark were connected to the grid in the days of Mr Robson’s or Mr Gordon-Brown’s ownership, with wayleaves agreed between the customer and company. Those wayleaves have not all formally been recorded though, with Express hearing stories of landowners finding electric connections that they didn’t know about beneath hedges on their land until very recently.
That raises safety concerns, along with the condition of the power station itself and the state of the grid across the island.
Despite a lack of investment, and widely reported safety concerns, power does not come cheap in Sark.
It currently costs 50pence per unit – which is 1p less than it did at the start of the year and 6p less than it did in November.
The price is set by an independent price commissioner, appointed by Chief Pleas.
Shane Lynch said that the price has dropped recently because of fuel prices being lower than had been forecast – but consumption was higher than forecast over last winter.
In February, he warned that “it is not possible to say for sure what will happen to prices in the months ahead”.
The ‘balancing fund’ had to build up again and if SEL were to make any approved capital expenditure the maximum price per unit would have to go up to cover that cost.
By comparison, Guernsey customers currently pay between 11.40p and 25.31p per unit.
If Sark’s prices seem a lot more, then it’s worth looking back a few years ago to when the island’s residents were paying 85p per unit in October 2019.
A year before that, a row between the then-owner of SEL and Chief Pleas over the introduction of price controls had escalated with Mr Gordon-Brown set to switch off the power station. With much of Sark’s water coming from boreholes, the loss of electricity would have also meant the loss of water prompting a crisis response from the island’s government.
The crisis was averted though, and the power stayed on, with Chief Pleas agreeing that Mr Gordon-Brown could set the price he wanted to charge temporarily while due diligence was done to enable Chief Pleas to buy Sark Electricity.
That purchase never materialised and the utility remains in private ownership today.
Purchase plans
Despite Chief Pleas starting its due diligence to try and buy SEL in 2018, that deal has never materialised.
When David Gordon-Brown died in 2020, his family decided to sell the utility. Chief Pleas did not step up at that time, so Witney-Price did instead.
While the purchase price wasn’t disclosed at the time, Express understands it was just under £500,000.
Uncertainty over the future ownership of the utility persisted though, with Chief Pleas stating in 2021 that it had hoped to buy SEL by the following year.
Sark’s Conseillers unanimously supported a proposal to legislate for the compulsory purchase of SEL in 2021, and the island said at the time that it could ask the States of Guernsey to help pay for it.
Chief Pleas said (again in 2021) that it wanted to ‘nationalise’ Sark’s power provider, and that Guernsey’s Law Officers were helping to draft the necessary legislation.
In 2022, the dispute between Mr Witney-Price and Chief Pleas reached a head when he asked the island’s government to provide the necessary permissions and wayleaves to dig a trench to lay a new cable across the Coupée to Little Sark.
The situation almost led to Little Sark’s electricity being cut off but that was averted despite Mr Witney-Price getting no assurances from Chief Pleas. Instead he wrote to the UK’s Ministry of Justice for support.
A group of houses on the main island of Sark have had their power cut off though. The 19 properties were disconnected from the grid following a land dispute.
The landowner told SEL to remove its infrastructure in a dispute over historic wayleaves. Mr Witney-Price said the issue was down to Chief Pleas not drafting legislation to prevent situations like this.
Although it may seem to an outsider like Chief Pleas had been sitting back on plans to buy SEL, there has always been work ongoing in the background to secure the purchase, and those plans are the ones that are coming to a head this week.
Sark Community Power
The current plans to buy SEL are in the hands of a group called Sark Community Power.
Today will see the States of Guernsey debate plans to lend Chief Pleas £1.5m which would allow Sark to attempt to buy – or compulsory purchase – SEL, assess the grid and make immediate improvements to the network that are deemed necessary.
Conseillers John Guille and Mike Locke have been involved with the negotiations with Guernsey and Mr Witney-Price so far, and they told Express that £1.5m would more than cover the purchase and the immediate work necessary to the grid.
However, if Mr Witney-Price forces Sark Community Power to compulsory purchase his business the price could rocket.
Mr Witney-Price has some political support for his resistance in both Guernsey and Sark, so the path ahead is by no means certain at this stage.
If Sark Community Power is able to buy SEL, then it says the power station and grid would be owned by the community.
It is proposed that Sark Community Power will be an island enterprise and will be owned by the people of Sark. It is not intended to be a subsidiary of Chief Pleas – with an example given of Sark Shipping.
Sark Community Power would differ in its structure and governance, with its community purpose and governance established in its articles of association.
It says the island’s electricity price would be set on an ‘open book basis’ at the price required to cover running and finance costs and build up sufficient cash-flow, unplanned maintenance and system replacement reserves.
Sark Community Power says it would hold an annual general meeting and publish its audited accounts each year and that it will continue to operate under the review of the Sark Electricity Price Commissioner who will provide independent oversight of the consumer price set.
While Sark Community Power would not be government owned, Chief Pleas is currently involved though, through the proposed loan it would receive from the States of Guernsey.
Sark Community Power says that loan would be repaid by the residents of Sark through their electricity payments.
In the long term, the ownership and governance structure of SEL, under Sark Community Power, would be confirmed through on-island consultation and discussion with any funders.
From what Express has learned of those plans, the island could look for off-island investors to completely redevelop the grid and make Sark a ‘green island’.
The work would take decades but could set Sark up for big improvements to the safety of its grid and lower power prices in the long term.