Who holds the power? New book challenges a century of Britain’s electricity grid

Britain’s electricity grid is approaching its centenary, but a new book argues that its future should look radically different from its past.

In Overcharged: How The Grid Took Your Power, journalist and off-grid pioneer Nick Rosen examines how the national electricity system developed—and asks whether it still serves the households and businesses that depend on it.

Published on 30 September, the book combines a century of history with whistleblower testimony and allegations about infrastructure spending, regulatory failures and the growing influence of US technology companies.

For Londoners facing household bills and businesses managing energy costs, its central question is a practical one: who benefits from the way Britain generates, distributes and charges for electricity?

Questions over regulation and spending

One of the book’s most striking claims concerns comments attributed to Ofgem chair Mark McAllister during a private industry discussion in 2024.

According to Rosen, McAllister said: “We know National Grid is gaming the system… They think they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth.”

Rosen reports that, when asked about the remarks, Ofgem’s press office said that “robust challenge between Ofgem and the companies we regulate is a routine and necessary part of effective regulation”.

The book also draws on testimony from a National Grid whistleblower, including an allegation that £410 million budgeted for essential infrastructure upgrades between 2013 and 2021 was not spent on the intended work.

Rosen claims regulatory accounting obscured the shortfall and that the funding was carried into the next spending period. According to the book, National Grid says it did not profit from the failure to complete the upgrades.

Another account concerns the former Ironbridge power station, where the whistleblower alleges a diesel generator ran for five years, from 2018 to 2023, costing more than £5 million. Rosen attributes this to difficulties separating live cables from the decommissioned site.

The book further describes a billing error spanning 2010 to 2023, involving £73 million in overcharges to electricity distributors and undercharges to generating companies. It reports National Grid’s position that nobody was left out of pocket, while Rosen argues that the uncertainty created ultimately carried costs for the public.

From the 1920s to the age of AI

The historical starting point is the Electricity (Supply) Act, which received Royal Assent on 15 December 1926. It established the Central Electricity Board and laid the institutional foundations for Britain’s national electricity system.

Rosen explores the influence of American business magnate Samuel Insull on the early grid, arguing that its development established a pattern in which infrastructure risks were shared publicly while profits flowed to private interests.

He draws parallels with today’s US technology companies and their demand for electricity to power AI data centres.

His contention is that Britain risks repeating old mistakes: prioritising large commercial users while households and smaller businesses carry the costs of expanding and maintaining the network.

Could communities take greater control?

Alongside its criticism, Overcharged proposes an alternative.

Rosen argues for a more decentralised electricity system, built around smaller local power networks combining renewable generation and battery storage. Some would connect to the national grid; others could operate independently.

He believes this could give communities greater control over their supply, reduce dependence on large power stations and offer an alternative to lengthy waits for grid connections.

The argument builds on decades of personal experience. Rosen began living off-grid after buying a mountaintop hut in Majorca, initially motivated by affordability rather than environmental ideology.

His earlier books, How to Live Off-Grid and Off the Grid, explored how people could live outside conventional infrastructure. His latest work asks what those ideas might mean for the country as a whole.

A journalist and documentary maker, Rosen has written for The Guardian, Reuters and The Independent, and made programmes for Channel 4 Dispatches and the BBC.

Reflecting on his involvement in environmental campaigning since the 1980s, he says: “Today’s movement is still struggling to connect with the silent majority—we have to find the right language and right issues to campaign on.”

With Overcharged, he places electricity costs and control at the centre of that conversation, asking whether the grid’s second century could give the public a greater say in how their power is produced and supplied.

Overcharged: How The Grid Took Your Power by Nick Rosen is published by Vivum Publishing, priced £13.99 in paperback.