The government does not understand the energy market. They say if the market stopped making gas generated power the price determinant for electricity all those renewables would take the price down.
Instead it would usually put the price up. Most renewables are supplied with a guaranteed price under the old renewable Obligations scheme or the newer contracts for difference.For most years of these schemes the renewables price is higher than buying gas based electricity. There are also the other green taxes and subsidies putting up power bills.
Renewables are unreliables . Solar delivers on average just 10% of stated capacity. Onshore wind 30%. Gas power is made dearer by having to keep it on stand by. The UK has dear electricity because it out in so many heavily subsidised wind and solar generators. It now faces a huge bill for more grid and storage to try to get them to work better.
July 5, 2025
Correct and all this is obvious to anyone sensible who understands energy and energy economics.
The sensible way to store “electricity”, other than a bit of pumped hydro perhaps not many suitable sites for this, is as a pile of coal, a store of gas, nuclear fuel or a tank of oil. So drill and frack please.
The idea of pushing everyone onto EVs and heatpumps is total insanity and will push up mainly winter only demand for electricity by circa 10 times. Vast grid capacity and generating capacity and back up will be needed. This all wasted for the rest of the year.
“Solar delivers on average just 10% of stated capacity.“ and largely when not wanted as in summer daytimes.
July 5, 2025
Agreed. And this hapless Labour government not only does not understand the energy market it does not understand any market. It does not comprehend that if you shackle market participants with ever heavier regulatory balls and chains and then repeatedly stab them with ever heavier taxes on energy, on jobs and on profits then those participants will either die or pack their bags and go elsewhere if they can. Their utter stupidity is almost beyond belief except that is what their predecessors have always done.
July 5, 2025
Indeed – they are just continuing the insane agendas of Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak but they are even worse!
July 5, 2025
Agree, although as well as the cost of renewables the inconsistency is a massive problem. As things stand I predict power rationing by the end of this decade. Many of our gas generating plants will have closed by then. There will be periods of low wind and no sun when we cannot generate sufficient electricity within the UK and when the Europeans want their power for home consumption.
July 5, 2025
Rationing – that’s why they are going to force everyone to have a smart meter and of course surge pricing so they can control supply by price, again hitting the poorest who have to do their chores when needed, not when the power companies say. By the way, they say to do washing and drying overnight – that’s not what the fire service says, but hey ho, who cares if a few houses get burned down in the name of nut zero.
July 5, 2025
Graham
Agreed, many house fires caused by washing machines/dryers and dishwashers which fail when in use, that is why we only use such machines when at home and awake, when at least you have a chance of spotting any potential problem early.
July 5, 2025
That is already happening. On the day when we most needed imports in 2024, with day ahead prices reaching up to £500/MWh they were constrained to around 4GW – just half of import capacity.
We are also seeing rejection of export surpluses even at negative prices resulting in curtailment because if it’s windy and sunny here, it’s often windy and sunny there too.
July 5, 2025
Lifelogic,
Indeed, not many woken up to how IHT will decimate a families finances/business yet, especially when private unused SIPP Pension funds are included in the 2027 tax year.
Already my Daughters are saying what is the point of anyone growing a successful business, and saving for the future, when you are going to be robbed by the Government of 40% of its value, then taxed again when they draw down what is left of your pension after already paying 40%. IHT.
July 5, 2025
As with Goebels propaganda, if you keep repeating a lie ir will be seen as fact.
Crown Estates are currently negotiating to build a floating offshore windfarm with a guarantee of £250 Per MWH. This is 5 times the cost of CCGT produced power. How is this going to reduce our bills.
Every wind turbine and solar farm increases the subsidy which the customers pay. With the ageing nuclear plants and CCGT plants due to be decommissioned in the next few years we are in for a very torrid time during the cold windless winter months.
Is there no one in Westminster who can call a halt to this madness
We are in a race with no other competitors.
July 5, 2025
indeed and intermittent electrical energy is worth far less than on demand CCGT or Coal electricity – not far more!
July 5, 2025
Pissing money down the drain and doing net harm too. So clearly is Net Zero a total scam against tax payers and bill payers.
July 5, 2025
We are being led by socialist zealots, who have not read their history. I am reminded of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ plan of the 1950’s China, the parallels with our government, people and methods, is getting more disturbing by the day.
For those who would like a reminder, read here for an overview. It did not end well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
July 5, 2025
Plus Charlie will have the advantage of no Inheritance Taxes as with his Mum and hardly other taxes either. Still we are all in it together as they like to say.
A letter in the Telegraph yesterday complained about Reeves hitting small business with NI and Farmers with IHT. But both small businesses are hit by both IHT and more NI and big businesses too.
July 5, 2025
The whole so called renewable energy scheme is absolute madness, until such time as the grid system is far more switchable, flexible, and with greater capacity for the differing sources of power, you are simply wasting your time and money trying to introduce variable and inconsistent loadings without reliable backups, and those running back ups just add to the cost.
Why can the clowns in charge not realise this simple fact.
July 5, 2025
“Why can the clowns in charge not realise this simple fact?”
Because they have already made their bed and now we are going to have to lie in it Alan
July 6, 2025
One of the crazier things is all the grid investment necessary to connect up remote generation on the off chance it might be producing some of the time, or an extra link that may be necessary to prevent grid overload, or to transport power to an interconnector to be sold at low or negative prices from time to time while ignoring the need to replace aged high utilisation assets like the transformers at North Hyde substation feeding Heathrow.
OFGEM and NESO have their priorities wrong.
July 5, 2025
So called “renewable energy” is better described as “unreliable, intermittent and seasonal energy.”
It will never be able to provide cheap, reliable energy because it requires subsidies to pay for the periods when it isn’t delivering. And it requires a reliable back-up system which can be guaranteed to provide energy 24/7.
Net Zero is a UN Scam, intended to transfer manufacturing and wealth from western nations to Asia and Africa and in the UK from “the little people” to wealthy/powerful people in the Establishment.
There is nothing green about unreliable, intermittent and seasonal energy. It is causing massive pollution, destruction of the environment and is killing huge numbers of wildlife (birds, bats, sea mammals).
July 5, 2025
Unfortunately, the evidence shows this is untrue. The UK Office for Budget Responsibility has examined in detail the size of the investments required for the UK to reach the statutory target of net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050. It’s July 2023 Fiscal Risks Report estimated, for the balanced pathway laid out by the Climate Change Committee;
“the total net cost of abatement across all sectors of the economy between 2020 to 2050 at £321 billion – with £1,312 billion of investment costs mostly offset by £991 billion of net operating savings”. It also said “net costs peak in 2027, when investment in power generation peaks and investment in buildings is ramping up. Net costs then fall steadily as operating savings from improved energy efficiency grow – and running costs fall. From 2040 onwards, net operating savings are projected to outweigh investment costs.”
By 2050, the net annual savings would be almost £19 billion.
Opponents of UK climate policies (aka the fossil fuel lobby mouthpiece Reform) have repeatedly tried to blame the size of electricity bills on so-called ‘green levies’. In fact, social and environmental policies now account for just £153, or 7.8 per cent, of an average annual dual fuel bill. This sum fell from £159 during winter 2021–22. In fact, renewables that are operating under Contracts for Difference have been generating electricity below the market rate since September 2021 – and so have been paying back money to the Treasury via the Low Carbon Contracts Company.
CfD never involve any subsidies and never have. They are merely a guaranteed price mechanism used to secure private sector funding for windfarms/solar farms to harvest free electricity
July 5, 2025
SG. The sources you quote have a vested interest in promoting Bet Stupid. Your very eloquent piece makes no mention of how we are goung to power a 21st century economy at night when th wind doesn’t blow
Where is this £1.3 trillion coming from to provide Unicorns after current CCGT plants are retired. Who is goung to invest in new CCGT plants after being told they’re not wanted.
Where is the generation coming from to power all these ASHPs and EVs after 2027. All excone of our nuclear plants are due or retirement and are operating way beyond their scheduled life.
I think you should broaden your scope of research before printing such nonesense.
July 5, 2025
The ONS and CCC, both organisations staffed by left wing academics and not an engineer between them.
July 5, 2025
Indeed.
July 5, 2025
Incorrect assumption in. Incorrect forecast out
July 5, 2025
Why do we sometimes have to pay wind farms to turn off the turbines ? What sort of nonsense is that ?
You can quote OBR nonsense as much as you like, their prediction record is dismal, but the facts are that Miliband said his green policies would reduce my electricity bill by £300 and in fact it went up. That’s a fact not a prediction.
July 5, 2025
‘Global warming’ is not about the science – UN Admits: ‘Climate change policy is about how we redistribute the world’s wealth’
“Ottmar Edenhofer, lead author of the IPCC’s fourth summary report released in 2007 candidly expressed the priority. Speaking in 2010, he advised, “One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. Instead, climate change policy is about how we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth.”
Or, as U.N. climate chief Christina Figueres pointedly remarked, the true aim of the U.N.’s 2014 Paris climate conference was “to change the [capitalist] economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
https://www.climatedepot.com/2017/05/24/global-warming-is-not-about-the-science-un-admits-climate-change-policy-is-about-how-we-redistribute-the-worlds-wealth/
July 5, 2025
Yes Rob Hersov has just stated publicly that in South Africa 100 Trillion Rands were redistributed to 100 families.
July 5, 2025
“CfD never involve any subsidies and never have” – Interesting statement – please explain in detail.
CfDs are intended to incentivise renewables deployment and when in operation involve a cash flow between the government (Low Carbon contracts company) and the generator. The LCCC gets it’s cash from a carbon levy on all consumer, business and industry bills. So how is this not a subsidy?
ref: “The pros and cons of contracts for difference” http://www.squeaky.energy
July 5, 2025
SG you live in a deluded dream world – Please go and study some physics, energy economics and electrical engineering. The laws of Physics will not change because Miliband want them to.
July 5, 2025
It is most certainly not “Free” SG – that’s complete nonsense.
July 5, 2025
SG:
The cost of renewable electricity used by the CCC and hence the OBR is entirely false. On P106 of the CCC’s 7th Carbon Budeget they write : “The average cost of offshore wind is expected to fall from £49/MWh to £35/MWh by 2040.” Well, the current CfD price for the last Allocation Round 6 is £85/MWhr and this price is rising not falling. Floating offshore wind is currently £202/MWhr and GB Energy announced last week that we will need to move to floating offshore wind because “we are running out of space” (presumably runnng out of shallow waters). And it must never be forgotten that since renewables are unreliable and chaotically intermittent it is necessary to overbuild, add grid stability and, if reliability is required either run a complete parallel system with hydrocarbon generators or develop grid-scale storage. Because storage is so expensive there is no plan, even for 2050. The Royal Society’s Large-Scale Electricity Report proposing mainly wind generation (80/20 wind/solar) and hydrogen for storage predicts a cost that is double the price of renewable generated electricity even when assuming that the wind capacity factor and electrolyser efficiency are both doubled from current values. They know all of this but believe that if they tell a big enough lie often enough people will believe it.
July 5, 2025
PS :
This article has a graph which shows quite clearly the payments to and from the renewable CfD suppliers from 2017 to today and includes the Ukraine war gas price spike:
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2025/06/18/ofgems-brearley-lies-about-renewables/#more-87216
July 5, 2025
Very interesting graph, thanks for sharing
July 6, 2025
The Low Carbon Contracts Company has some charts of the data that are updated regularly albeit with a lag of about a fortnight to gather metering data etc. here
https://www.lowcarboncontracts.uk/resources/scheme-dashboards/cfd-historical-data-dashboard/
You can also download the data from the same page to see for each CFD the daily generation, subsidy payments, weighted average market value using the hourly day ahead reference prices for intermittent CFDs and the six month baseload reference prices for biomass etc., the strike price applicable, and other less relevant information. The payments do not include any payments under the Balancing Mechanism or for any ancillary services. You will need some modest spreadsheet skills to make sense of it.
The chart clearly shows SG’s claim is false. We are currently being levied at about £12/MWh on all our bills to subsidise about 10% of generation that is under CFDs.
July 5, 2025
SG : “CfD never involve any subsidies and never have. They are merely a guaranteed price mechanism used to secure private sector funding for windfarms/solar farms to harvest free electricity.”
According to the Renewable Energy Foundation net zeroing our electricity alone has cost us £220bn or £8000 per household since 2002 with 5 direct and 5 indirect subsidies for renewables. The annual subsidy now amounts to £25.8bn/year and comprises 40% of the cost of electricity. Not only do renewables get subsidised prices higher than the market prices they also get get grid priority and constraint payments when their energy is not needed. DESNZ’s Clean Power by 2030 plan has been costed by NESO at “over £40bn/year”. BTW, coal oil and gas are also “free”.
July 5, 2025
Goldy …I have to say I had a good laugh that the total premise of your treatise relies on the OBR saying so!
That their previous claims have been found to be hopelessly inaccurate and rivalling Trump’s sincere but changed policies mere days later.
July 6, 2025
They appear merely to be regurgitating nonsense pushed by the CCC. As neither has any real expertise (the CCC rely on sock puppet consultancies prepared to give them the answers they want along with the usual disclaimers about bearing no responsibility if they are wrong, and the use of unverified DESNZ assumptions about costs and technical progress). It’s a circle jerk.
Independent estimates made by genuine experts in their fields come up with a wide uncertainty range for the costs of Net Zero (and they don’t include the reduction in GDP it will cause), but £5-10trillion is a better starting point.
July 5, 2025
‘Opponents of UK climate policies (aka the fossil fuel lobby mouthpiece Reform)’
Opponents of UK climate policies = all sensible people who understand mathematics and energy production. Fixed that for you.
July 5, 2025
Either the Climate Change Committee is mathematically incompetent or they are deliberately trying to justify the energy price by continually parroting a falsehood.
There are so many examples of truth being swamped by falsehood in social media because it suits an agenda and the recipients hear what they want to hear.
July 5, 2025
Practically everyone in parliament is mathematically incompetent and scientifically uneducated and clueless. Hence they believe any old pseudo-scientific nonsense from lobbyists with vested interests be it on net zero, COVID, ultra-processed food etc. etc. They are simply not equipped to understand or challenge any self-proclaimed expert (it’s going on every day at the Covid inquiry which is being run by a legal establishment who can’t understand “the science”).
July 5, 2025
Trouble is, they never hear any other point of view. No expert who speaks against the net zero nonsense is allowed to address any meaningful meeting and the BBC never allow any naysayers on their airwaves, against their founding principles, they are now just propagandists for the elite who have vast interests in all this stuff.
July 5, 2025
Indeed lots of dim lawyers and deluded PPE graduates like Cameron, Miliband, Handcock, Hunt… the Covid Enquiry is a sick and rather evil joke!
July 5, 2025
They have their own agenda which is certainly not about finding out the truth!
July 5, 2025
Indeed or both mathematically incompetent and they are deliberately trying to justify the energy price by continually parroting a falsehood.
July 5, 2025
“The government does not understand the energy market.”
Led by Mad Ed Milliband, the government does understand it. But they lie about it in order to continue the virtue signalling lunatic rush to renewables.
July 5, 2025
The agenda is political communist social engineering …..and not democratic capitalist freedom
July 6, 2025
I really think they don’t understand it. They keep getting surprised, whether it is zero bids for offshore wind in AR5, or the reasons for and extent of the energy crisis (rather more than “Ukraine”), or that unmaintained grid assets fail, or that excess summer solar and surplus wind cannibalise revenues requiring extra subsidies, or that countries will not willingly supply over interconnectors or absorb surpluses without very substantial inducement, if at all, or that with high prices industry shuts down and moves away (OK, that one is probably intentional).
July 5, 2025
They know that dear electricity is not caused by the gas price and they know full well how the energy market works. It’s obvious from the fact that countries that use more gas and less renewables have cheaper electrity. But the high prices are deliberate. The whole CAGW and its Net Zero” solution is a communist hoax to sabotage the democratic West’s energy, economies and national security as evidenced by the free pass given to China, India, Indonesia etc. and the refusal to use nuclear the only source of low carbon power which is reliable and affordable (when built anywhere else but the UK).
July 5, 2025
Indeed they surely are not so stupid as to believe in the net zero renewables lunacy are they? Well perhaps Ed Tomb Stone, Toy Guitar player Miliband is?
July 5, 2025
Why do we have to put up with these fairy tales from HMG?
It’s not as though they try very hard to hide the actual facts that they are making energy scarce and expensive, but they do like to throw in misleading ideas to confuse the debate.
Renewables were never going to be cheap – that’s another deceit from HMG, Renewables have to be renewed, expensively, with inability to be recycled. We know windmills and solar panels will never be adequate to supply all the energy we need – Their planning says that when there is not enough energy generated then we go without, simple as that! That’s the only thing we can be sure of.
But don’t expect any accuracy in when we will see blackouts – at best numbers were generated on the backs of fag packets. Details from the CCC are just as vague and indeed criminally misrepresented.
July 5, 2025
The biggest lies being told to us are all related the Net Zero and Climate Change and nearly everything we do towards a “cleaner” world is performative with a lot of unresearched downsides. Eventually there will have to be a transition to nuclear power generation (plus a little wind and solar where appropriate) but there may be unheard of technologies devised through human ingenuity that will also replace oil and gas.
The message should be to let the world, its science and technology evolve and don’t let politicians try and force the pace in one deluded direction.
July 5, 2025
And don’t forget the higher costs of imported energy, ie electricity from europe, LPG from the middle-east and raw wood pellets from the americas ….and the higher costs of equipment & machinery imported from china to satisfy the renewable solar & wind-turbine
July 5, 2025
”The report shows that around 63% of UK gas supply is imported into the country”
https://www.nstauthority.co.uk/news-publications/north-sea-gas-is-almost-four-times-cleaner-than-lng-imports/
July 5, 2025
”The U.K. is expected to import a record 9.641 million metric tons of wood pellets in 2024” 100% imported from america, canada & europe
https://biomassmagazine.com/articles/uk-pellet-imports-expected-to-reach-record-high-in-2024
July 5, 2025
”Electricity imports have reached record levels, with 19.8% of demand met by overseas sources”
Thats a 5th of our energy need
https://reports.electricinsights.co.uk/q2-2024/britain-imports-one-fifth-of-its-electricity/
July 5, 2025
Metaphorically in trying to get from Birmingham to Cardiff you do not go via Istanbul. That is where our energy policy is, anchored in Istanbul or beset by insanity. There is no point in trying to tinker with what exists, you need to start with a blank sheet of A4, decide what you are trying to achieve and go from there.
I have. Recently watched a lecture with questions by Dominic Cummins. One of the few people around politics who thinks and speaks coherently. He has witnessed the need for a major reset in the way in which the U.K. is run. He articulates what I have been thinking for quite a time. I only see five members of Parliament set on such a direction of travel, for the moment.
July 5, 2025
I have asked before (when 15% came from Russia) if commenters had any idea where we get our gas from.
We import the majority of our NG from Norway, the USA, Qatar, Trinidad & Tobago !! and Algeria. We also export some gas!! The North Sea will no longer supply all our needs and reserves are projected to only last 10 years at most.
A reliance on natural gas as a strategic fuel is an insane plan – we need alternatives with nuclear at the top of the list.
As an individual it became clear our government was not going to address the problem when they turned away from nuclear.
So what is an individual to do? whine perpetually at newspapers and blogs and demand the government “do something” or try to take responsibility for their own needs and try to mitigate the problem.
Personally I think we should use whatever sustainable energy sources we can that don’t rely to a large degree on imports – Nuclear with some solar and wind all putting surplus into producing syngas that can be used to generate electricity, converted to liquid fuels or used as industrial feed stock.
To mitigate household costs I have invested (without subsidies) in solar and an EV, the solar capital paid back in 6 years and the EV provides blackout security for essential items. I have significantly reduced my energy demand and costs for more than half the year and make a small return on exported surplus. A battery will significantly improve my economics and resilience further.
July 5, 2025
PS it is a grey overcast day in Wokingham at the moment but my roof is powering the house, including producing hot water for the tank and exporting to the grid.
I don’t have a battery yet but when I do that surplus will instead go into the battery to cover higher energy elements such as cooking.
July 5, 2025
Good for you, thats your choice …..and if you believe the net-zero hype, most people just want cheap reliable energy (that we have in abudance in the UK)
July 5, 2025
The green blob quotes IRENA prices and similar for “the price” of solar or wind.
Yet these IRENA prices are not the prices we are paying. There is a major mismatch between those prices and CfD prices.
It’s basically fraudulent.
July 5, 2025
517 criminals were smuggled, in plain sight, into the UK yesterday on the 4th July from France… despite the French police slashing ‘one’ boat (those passengers are now on the next boat tomorrow …they don’t arrest them)
July 5, 2025
And there just happened to be about 6 ‘boys in blue’ who could wade in and slash it…assisted by a cameraman of course.
Who fell for the media stunt?
July 5, 2025
That one ‘staged event’ clip has justified the £500 million we’ve paid france
July 6, 2025
Especially staged for the BBC it seems. You are now meant to believe it happens every time.
July 5, 2025
Correct me if I am wrong but is this Energy Market a direct result of privatising the energy industry by Mrs T ?
Is competition in the Energy Market is a bit artificial like SSEB no longer selling Electricity.
Net Zero has clouded the waters some what to get a true picture as to if Mrs T actually save the cost of energy to the consumer in the long run.
The fact that we do not use our own Oil and Gas does not help matters.
Reply No, this complex regulatory system for net zero destroyed tge competitive model post privatisation which delivered self sufficiency and lower prices
July 5, 2025
I’ve had solar for 1 year now. It’s delivered 7.5% of stated capacity to date.
July 5, 2025
Was it producing in the middle of the day? At least you could run your fridge on it?
July 5, 2025
Why do we have 650 MPs who do no analysis of the costs and benefits of their decisions? Climate Change has happened for thousands of years and will continue to do so. The arrogance of humanity in thinking it can change the weather would be funny if it were not so serious!
No sane government would build two power supply systems because one is unreliable.
It seems we are at Net Stupidity, and any decent climate scientist will tell you Net Zero will never be achieved!
July 5, 2025
Rather than discarding gas as a energy source,more emphasis and investment should be encouraged in developing gas sources, both by exploration/extraction of gas fields and also by generation from wastes such as sewage and landfill-bound refuse. Both British Gas and Thames Water have invested in these technologies and have sound processes that require upscaling to market. Solving two problems with one process with recyclables of enduring supply is the way forward in my view.
July 5, 2025
As I write (1.55 pm) I note The Grid cost is negative! So use lots on Interconnect and get paid at the same time?
July 5, 2025
As at 23:00hrs solar is providing zero (0) to the grid, while we’re receiving 16.8% of our energy from france ….were’s the logic in that ?
July 5, 2025
Off topic – so Farage has lost 40% of his MPs in a year.
He’s going to have to win a thumping majority to survive in Government for a year.
I wonder if there are the voters in sufficient numbers who support his acceptance of the changing demographic of the U.K. with equanimity?
July 5, 2025
Excellently brisk and concise analysis by JR. All one can add is: so skewed are free markets by the dead hand of state subsidy (ie. theft of the working net taxpayer employee and employer in the private sector) that governments and their (state-subsidised) civil servants have grown not merely indifferent to but almost unconscious of the inevitable economic end-result of subsidy-dependency in energy: the exponentially swift approach of the complete breakdown of the United Kingdom. One tiny war, one natural catastrophe or even a temporary climate event, one more health hazard (iodine deficiency or endemic 3rd-world diseases in current large-scale immigration) and our entire system will suddenly collapse.
July 5, 2025
+1
July 5, 2025
Kathyrn Porter in DT 30th June –
Ministers are placing unfair obligations on energy companies . Such as –
The wealth redistribution involved in the Warm Home Discount.
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) that requires suppliers help their customers cut energy usage through home improvements.
Smart-meter installation is another burden.
Suppliers collect levies designed to pay for the subsidies given to renewable generators .
The business ends up being extremely complicated.
Consumers have been gaslit into believing suppliers are making huge profits .
Energy companies are not ripping you off – its – guess who !
Hope you can read the article to get a fuller picture .