ABSTRACT The emergence of a progressive politics of abundance has reframed debates about growth, capacity and the role of the state, challenging policy frameworks that manage scarcity rather than enabling expansion. In the UK energy system, this paper argues, scarcity is not the result of insufficient resources or weak demand, but of a system design that has produced high prices, slow delivery and suppressed consumption. Despite significant expansion in renewable generation capacity, Britain remains trapped in a high‐cost equilibrium characterised by grid constraints, delayed connections, fragmented regulation and underinvestment in enabling infrastructure. The paper contends that energy abundance in the renewables era must be redefined: not as installed capacity alone, but as the ability to deliver affordable, reliable and clean power at scale, when and where it is needed. It argues that achieving this requires a shift from marginal, project‐by‐project optimisation towards deliberate system design, centred on electrification, proactive infrastructure build‐out and institutional reform. Energy abundance, the paper concludes, is not a by‐product of decarbonisation but its precondition—and a necessary foundation for economic renewal, industrial competitiveness and a durable political settlement around net zero in the UK.
Tone Langengen (Fri,) studied this question.