Our Energy System Is Broken and People Not Policy Are Holding It Back

At the June 2025 Blue Earth Forum, one narrative dominates: the UK energy sector is characterised by good intentions, strong technologies, and innovative funding models. But progress is still gridlocked. Not because we lack the solutions, but because we haven’t tackled the human and systemic blockers that prevent them from scaling.

The elephant in the room is this: our energy model hasn’t changed meaningfully in 50 years.

Power is still generated in large, centralised facilities and pushed outward through an aging, inflexible grid.

Most consumers remain passive recipients, disconnected from the means of production, with limited control and even less trust. Yes, we talk about net zero. Yes, the policy direction is broadly supportive. But net zero dos not sound, positive or uplifting. It does not fill people with hope. It just sounds hard. And behaviour change isn’t following fast enough, because we’re trying to fit new thinking into old frameworks, and there’re no consistent narrative to get behind.

There’s No Shortage of Capital, But It’s Stuck

As one investor pitch put it starkly: “There’s more than £1 trillion in capital available for energy and climate transition projects, but we can’t deploy it at scale because the legal frameworks, transaction friction, and deal readiness simply aren’t there.”

It’s not a money problem, it’s a design and execution problem, where the complexity of project finance, the fragmentation of the market, and outdated procurement mechanisms lock out the very projects we need most.

And this creates a vicious cycle.

If you’re a founder, an SME, or a farmer trying to plug into the transition, the barriers are so high that many simply walk away. Good solutions stall. Trust erodes. And business-as-usual continues.

Biomass: It’s Complicated

Nowhere is this tension clearer than in the debate around biomass. On one side, large-scale biomass has rightly come under fire, especially where wood pellets are sourced from deforested land, or emissions are underreported. The Drax controversy looms large here.

But that’s not the whole picture. Waste-based biomass, anaerobic digestion, and biomethane sourced from agriculture, sewage, and food waste streams are already playing a vital role in reducing dependency on fossil gas.

These aren’t perfect solutions, but they’re necessary transition tools while the grid catches up, decentralised generation scales, and green hydrogen matures.

Painting all biomass with the same brush risks throwing out viable transition tech in pursuit of purity, when what we need is pragmatism and speed.

PPAs, Gridlocks, and Small Business Paralysis

Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) have the potential to radically decentralise the market by allowing businesses to buy renewable energy directly from generators. But again, structure gets in the way.

PPAs are legally complex, financially rigid, and typically designed for large corporates. The result? SMEs, who make up the majority of UK businesses, are shut out of the game, even when they want to buy green.

And this is where behavioral barriers come back in.

If your first few attempts to ‘go green’ lead you into a maze of red tape, you’re likely to disengage. Not because you’re apathetic, but because the system wasn’t built for you.

The Human Bottleneck

Across the event, one truth kept surfacing: the biggest blocker to transformation isn’t engineering, materials, or even money - it’s people. From planners to policymakers, investors to installers, trust gaps, legacy mindsets, and sheer inertia are slowing everything down.

A few early-stage businesses, like POP (formerly OneZero) and HiveTracker, are trying to shift this. POP’s rebrand reflects an effort to position distributed energy as credible, scalable, and desirable, not niche or radical.

And it's not limited to the energy sector either. HiveTracker, for example, is using smart beehives to measure biodiversity in real time, creating accessible, verifiable proof points that engage both regulators and consumers. Their solution has been adopted by huge corporates like Sanofi to help bring back biodiversity to polluted sites. And farmers globally can start to see the real impact of introducing regerative farming methods.

But these are the exceptions.

Most legacy generators are still operating under the same command-and-control logic that dominated the post-war era. And the public, rightly or wrongly, doesn’t believe the transition is working in their favor. Until that changes, resistance will persist even if the alternatives are cheaper, cleaner, and technically viable.

Desire Drives Demand

The real insight from Blue Earth isn’t about infrastructure, it’s about appetite.

You don’t create behaviour change by force. You create it through desire.

People need to want to be part of the transition, not feel forced into it. That means showing them the upside in cost, autonomy, purpose, and relevance.

Greenvolt made this point vividly. Their model of enabling self-consumed solar energy for businesses - big or small - is about reducing dependency and giving control back to the consumer. It’s a mindset shift, as much as a technological one. When the desire is there, the system starts to bend.

Conversations change.

Policy follows.

Investment flows.

And most importantly, change becomes viral.

Final Thought

There is no silver bullet for the UK energy system.

But one thing is clear: until we design for people, and create a narrative that we can all buy into, we’ll remain stuck in transition limbo.

To unlock real progress, we need:

• Financial instruments that fit the scale and speed of emerging players

• Communication that builds trust, clarity

• Policy that supports not just innovation, but implementation

• And a cultural shift that makes sustainability something people want to opt into, not something they’re guilted into adopting

Behaviour isn’t a side issue. It’s THE issue. And if we don’t solve for that, the system will keep resisting change, no matter how good the tech.

Sources & References

• Greenvolt presentation, Blue Earth Forum, 2025

• POP energy platform, brand relaunch context via Blue Earth

• Kumo investor pitch (climate finance and transaction friction)

• HiveTracker one-to-one conversation: biodiversity monitoring through smart beehives

• Biomass discussion based on event themes and external reference: Ember https://ember-climate.org and BEIS reports on gas alternatives

• Drax critique: The Guardian, “The great biomass betrayal,” April 2023

• SME PPA limitations: Cornwall Insight, 2024 PPA Market Report