Whatever else has happened since the General Election, there is one manifesto commitment being pursued with relentless vigour. The drive towards renewable energy is well and truly on, and moving at pace. Money is being poured in and obstacles are being swept aside.

Equally noteworthy is that, on the face of it, Scottish and UK Governments have decided they had better work in common cause. In a little-noticed move last week amidst Budget fall-out, a consultation paper on planning reforms was issued jointly, a novelty which would normally have commanded headlines.

The aim is to bring Scotland’s tortoise-like planning procedures into line with the English model, a heresy which would not hitherto have been countenanced. “The current system is inefficient and unpredictable, providing no certainty on how long consent will take”, wrote Michael Shanks, the Rutherglen MP and Energy Minister. “For those desperate to bring new energy generating assets onto the grid, it presents a barrier to attracting investment and delivering yet more clean energy to homes and businesses”.

Mr Shanks enthused: “We have worked closely with the Scottish Government to develop these reform proposals, and this has been an exemplar of what can be achieved when two governments work together on an issue of shared interest”.

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The acting Scottish Energy Secretary, Gillian Martin, was equally positive: “We welcome this consultation as an opportunity to seek reforms that can both make an immediate impact, and future-proof our consenting systems, ensuring they remain fit for a modern Scotland. We appreciate our counterparts in the UK Government for their engagement and collaborative approach throughout this process”.

What is going on in the world? How welcome. How long overdue. And just to emphasise the urgency being applied, this is to be no long drawn-out consultation. It will last just four weeks, rather than months or years. The proposals include earlier community consultation, a six-week time limit for objections and reform of the interminable public inquiry process.

Since the General Election, we have seen a stream of measures to unleash public and private sector funding. New borrowing powers for the Crown Estate, legislation to create GB Energy; a huge increase in Contract for Difference funding which ensures huge projects will happen and a change in the Government’s own borrowing rules with energy transition at the head of the queue.

However, in the rush of positive news, one large area of interest tends to be overlooked. What are consumers going to get out of it? More specifically, what are Scottish consumers going to get out it and - above all - what’s in it for people living in far-flung parts of the country which are about to turned into generating stations for the whole of Britain?

I am not talking here about football strips for the local team. There are separate arguments for systemic community payments as a share of profits earned and also an unanswerable case for facilitating community ownership of projects which can bring far greater returns than any deals with multinational developers are likely to yield.

All that is desirable and should be addressed through legislation rather than reliance on corporate goodwill. However, I am referring to something much more fundamental - the price people pay for energy through their bills which is by far the most important factor in determining fuel poverty or whether businesses can operate viably.

At the moment, we only have a generalised assumption that the transition to renewable energy will bring everyone’s bills down. Maybe aye, maybe naw, but it will take a long time to find out. In the meantime, there is an intensive debate going on about something called zonal pricing. At this point, your eyes can be forgiven for glazing over.

For two years, a “Review of Electricity Arrangements” or REMA to the cognoscenti, has been ongoing. Unfortunately, it is probably the most jargonised, acronym-laden forum I have ever encountered and the last people intended to participate are consumers.

What is the Scottish Government's position om zonal pricing?What is the Scottish Government's position om zonal pricing? (Image: PA)

Essentially, zonal pricing would lead to lower wholesale electricity prices in parts of the country where power is generated, feeding through to end users. At one end of the debate, the chief executive of Octopus Energy, a retail supplier, has attracted headlines with the claim that, on this basis, Scotland could have Europe’s cheapest electricity. What’s not to like?

In Shetland recently, the Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes, jumped on the Octopus bandwagon and waxed lyrical about the “greatest injustice” of people living close to wind turbines and paying some of the highest energy bills in the country. :”This is Scotland’s energy”, she declared, “and we will not tolerate anyone in fuel poverty that lives within a metre or a mile of these turbines”.

The problem is that Ms Forbes’ unambiguous position is significantly different from that of the Scottish Government in which she is, er, Deputy First Minister. And there is no ambiguity at all about the position of Scottish Power, SSE and Scottish Renewables to zonal pricing. They are 100 per cent opposed to zonal pricing and using every sinew of lobbying power to say so.

Their contention is that zonal pricing would drive investment away from Scotland and particularly its more peripheral parts because of uncertainty about the price power could be sold for. Has Ms Forbes told them she profoundly disagrees?

It is a fiendishly complex argument for multi-billion pound stakes, with merits on both sides. The best I can offer is that it is possible for two facts to be true. One, that there must be benefit through their bills for communities which host the new era of power generation and second, that zonal pricing may not be the best way to achieve it.

In which case, the obligation of governments and generators is to get round this newly carved table of reason and goodwill to come up with an alternative approach that delivers the same outcome. Ms Forbes should recognise there is a genuine dilemma which can’t be addressed by grandstanding. Instead, she could tell us where the Scottish Government actually stands on zonal pricing?

Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003