[Nursie]

Net Zero is not the cause of high energy costs in the UK. The cause is international al energy costs, a way of setting the benchmark price per unit against the most expensive power, and tax.

Clean, renewable power is a way out of the mess.

[logifail]

"What costs make up an electricity bill?" from the House of Commons Library is worth a read[0], it reveals the typical breakdown of a household electricity bill in the UK:

Wholesale electricity costs make up 28.7% of the bill

Carbon taxes make up 6.4%

[0] https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

[gadders]

"While gas accounts for 93% of wholesale electricity prices, those wholesale prices are only around 40% of bills. Ofgem’s breakdown of bills includes the costs of the Capacity Market (“CM”) and Contracts for Difference (“CfD”) within wholesale costs and not policy costs. Policy costs include the Renewables Obligation (“RO”), Feed in Tariffs (“FiT”), Energy Company Obligation (“ECO”), Warm Homes Discount (“WHD”), Green Gas Levy (“GGL”), Network Charging Compensation Scheme (“NCCS”) and Assistance for Areas with High Electricity Distribution Costs (“AAHEDC”). Moving CM and CfD costs from wholesale to policy costs would reduce the share of wholesale costs in the final bill to 42% and increase policy costs to 14%."

"Prior to 2006, the margin between retail and wholesale electricity prices was broadly stable at 3.88 – 4.79 p/kWh with an average of 4.23 p/kWh (2006 money). Had this margin been maintained in the subsequent years ie the costs of the energy transition not been added to bills, households would have saved £130 billion in 2006 money (£218 billion in today’s money). In contrast, some estimates suggest that the UK spent an additional £75 billion as a result of the 2021-23 gas crisis.

So despite what people say about high gas prices being responsible for high electricity prices, this was only true for late 2021-23 – for most of the past 25 years, something other than gas prices has been driving electricity prices higher."

https://watt-logic.com/2025/05/19/new-report-the-true-afford...

[testfrequency]

You’re not allowed to celebrate how prepared for the future the UK is over nearly every other country in the world. You must get angry about current high energy costs due to the investments and war that are happening, just ignore anything positive.

[ben_w]

In fairness, it is very difficult to look at the last 16 years of British governments and hold the belief "these people have well prepared the UK for the future".

[testfrequency]

I agree there’s no shortage of misses and embarrassments, though I would argue there’s still a lot to be proud of. A lot of progress has been made - especially when you zoom out and compare to peers. The HN crowd these days seems to have it out for Europe, and only sees headlines about doom and gloom in policy.

If anything, the past 16 years has taught me personally that everyone in the UK wants change - too much change possibly.

The UK was the first G7/G20 to cut carbon emissions by 50%, we just ranked [0] 3rd globally large in part to setting up for the future with green energy.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/08/climate-...

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Ed Miliband has been doing really well as Energy Secretary, "overseeing a boom in clean energy investment, driving jobs and growth" (1)

But he hasn't been there for very many of the last 16 years.

1) https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/miliband-bids-t...

[pjc50]

Oddly, the Conservative government was overseeing the renewables boom, although they did kneecap onshore wind unnecessarily.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Sadly the current Conservative leadership have fallen quite far, prioritising cheap culture-war nonsense instead

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/kemi-badenoch-says-tory-hopefu...

[ben_w]

Mm. Double-checking their actual record, much moreso than I remember.

[gadders]

How do international high energy costs single out the UK and make our energy costs the highest?

>>Clean, renewable power is a way out of the mess.

Yes, can't wait until it exists.

[Nursie]

> How do international high energy costs single out the UK and make our energy costs the highest?

Because of the marginal energy pricing scheme in use, which pays for all generation as if it were the most expensive. That and taxes etc. The UK energy market needs reform, blaming the Net Zero effort is ... well it's just wrong.

[gadders]

And paying people to not generate electricity

But essentially there no countries with high renewables and low energy cost: https://nypost.com/2025/05/07/opinion/cheap-solar-and-wind-i...

[Nursie]

An opinion piece in an American right-wing tabloid? That's surely the end of the argument then!

[pjc50]

The NY Post as well, which is "B52 FOUND ON MOON" level of delusional.

[gadders]

"By Bjorn Lomborg"

[Nursie]

Even less reason to read it then, well known as an unreliable source.

[pjc50]

There are some highly specific issues, which need fixing, but doing so requires having all the deliberately uninformed idiots removed from the debate and silenced.

Top of the list is probably the problem that most of the renewables are generated in Scotland while demand growth is in England, especially around London. Getting electricity across the country requires power lines. However, NIMBYs are holding the entire country hostage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2n76244x5o

In order to avoid opposition, there is a new plan: https://www.easterngreenlink1.co.uk/ + https://www.easterngreenlink2.co.uk/ , which will be almost entirely undersea. Almost. NIMBY opposition is focusing on the shore landing points. I believe "grade 2 listed concrete anti-tank cubes" were mentioned at one point, although I can't find that reference.

Once those are built, there should be no more instances where we have to burn gas in the south while curtailing wind in the north. More distributed battery storage is being deployed (again, in the face of NIMBYs).

Anyone who is going to tout nuclear as the solution: you are going to have to deal with even more NIMBYs. Coal? Obviously a non-starter. Gas: there is some argument that you might be able to get more out of North Sea drilling. However, please provide a timescale for that. It's not instant either.