Public sector pension fund to consider withdrawing investment in renewable energy company

Richard Youle, local democracy reporter

A large public sector pension fund will look into the possibility of withdrawing from an investment in Bute Energy.

The committee overseeing the £3 billion-plus Dyfed Pension Fund, whose contributors include Carmarthenshire Council and other public sector organisations, had been asked to consider if it could obtain a release from an earlier investment in Bute Energy, which wants to build wind farms in Mid Wales.

The issue is not about the wind farms but subsequent proposals by a Bute Energy subsidiary, Green GEN Cymru, to link the wind farms via two lines of pylons to a substation near Carmarthen.

Strong opposition to the pylon plans has been expressed along with calls for the wires to be buried underground via a technique called cable ploughing.

Opponents

Carmarthenshire Council is among the overhead line opponents and it was a letter from its cabinet member for resources, Cllr Alun Lenny, who is also a Dyfed Pension Fund employer representative, which put forward the withdrawal request.

At the same time the council has regularly expressed its concern about climate change and endorsed a target of being a “net zero” greenhouse gas- emitting authority by 2030. Separately, industry leaders have long warned that the grid in Mid-Wales needs upgrading to avoid renewable projects waiting years to be connected.

Speaking at a Dyfed Pension Fund committee meeting on September 19, which began with a member of the public calling for it to divest fully from fossil fuels by 2030, Cllr Dai Thomas said he was concerned about the request to consider divesting from funding arrangements from one or more of Bute Energy’s companies.

Criticism

“We are under criticism for not divesting from fossil fuels fast enough, and here we are proposing to divest from a zero-carbon investment – I don’t think it looks good,” said Cllr Thomas. “I’d agree that we should push for under-grounding of the cables, but the divestment bit I don’t agree with. I propose we note the report, and that’s it.”

Chris Moore, the council’s corporate services director, said the pension fund would need to establish first whether it was even legally possible to divest from the Bute Energy investment. The sum put in by the fund was part of a £68 million investment in the renewable energy company by an umbrella pension body in Wales.

The committee was also advised that Dyfed Pension Fund was unlikely to get value for money – one of its principal objectives – if was to divest early.

Committee chairman, Cllr Elwyn Williams, said he thought it would be best to find out how much divestment would cost. “We should not just assume that we can’t,” he said.

Mr Moore then suggested that it might be appropriate to note the contents of the divestment request, which included other things like pressing Bute Energy-Green GEN Cymru on whether it had fully evaluated the cable-ploughing option, and come up with a response which could be discussed at a future committee meeting, and his suggestion was approved.