Net zero is sending your energy bills through the roof – and Things Can Only Get Worse

Sir Keir said: “Things will get worse before they get better.” But instead of changing course to make things better, the Labour leader will put the failed energy policies of his Tory predecessors on steroids.

In campaign mode, the messaging was, of course, very different. In the run-up to the 2022 local elections, voters were urged: “Vote Labour for up to £600 off your energy bills.”

In this year’s general election campaign, that figure was downgraded to £300. This, we learned, would be achieved with the help of the resurrected zombie of the private finance initiative (PFI), beloved of Labour administrations past. Badged “GB Energy”, a publicly owned company will act as an investment vehicle enabling companies to take a punt on “green” energy projects while taxpayers take on the risk.

Energy bills set to rise

Since Starmer’s landslide victory, we have heard very little about the £300 saving, other than the commitment applies to bills in 2030. By this time, we are invited to believe, Labour will have decarbonised the electricity network. Meanwhile, new Chancellor Rachel Reeves claimed to be so surprised at the appalling state of the nation’s finances that she had no option but to axe the winter fuel payment for most pensioners.

This was followed last week by regulator Ofgem’s announcement that a typical annual energy bill will rise by £149 in October, with the introduction of a new price cap. To the untrained observer, it might seem there is some causal relationship between the inexorable rise in the cost of energy and the simultaneous drive towards a “renewables revolution”.

But this is not the case, according to Ed Miliband, who is, oxymoronically, Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. In the wake of Ofgem’s announcement, Miliband wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the Tories’ failure “to secure our energy system has left families at the mercy of international markets controlled by dictators”.

This was a reference to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which shocked the global energy market. But UK bills were already rocketing and the bin fire that is British energy policy was well ablaze when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Putin merely fanned the flames.

Miliband’s proposed solution is not to change course but to double down in a “sprint towards clean, homegrown power”, lifting the onshore wind ban south of the Border, “consenting solar and getting more renewable projects built”. It is not that we are careering down the wrong path, his argument goes, it is that we are not careering down this path fast enough.

Growing drain on public purse

This position is increasingly unsustainable. Without subsidies, it is hard to make a business case for the unreliable, low-density, intermittent power that wind delivers. Berkshire Hathaway boss Warren Buffett, who knows a thing or two about investing, has said: “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That’s the only reason to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.” This is why the burgeoning renewables sector is such a growing drain on the public purse.

The sheer scale of industrialisation involved in Miliband’s headlong “sprint” to decarbonise by 2030 is staggering. For example, the Sophia Offshore Wind Farm at Dogger Bank will cover an area of nearly 600 square kilometres. It is part of a drive to quadruple offshore wind capacity.

Each turbine will use three 108-metre-long blades, each weighing 65 tonnes. The box containing the generator will weigh another 500 tonnes. At 252 metres, each turbine will be just 60 metres short of the UK’s tallest building, the Shard. The foundations will weigh up to 1,400 tonnes, bringing the total weight of each turbine to nearly 3,000 tonnes.

The wind farm will consist of 100 such structures – about 300,000 tonnes of industrial equipment, largely steel. For reference, a Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier weighs 65,000 tonnes. We will need 30 such farms to meet the government’s offshore wind target. And we haven’t even mentioned onshore wind yet. Or the cost of reconfiguring and upgrading the network.

When the wind doesn’t blow

No wonder we need to throw so much public money at developers in subsidies and “constraint payments” to make all this worth their while. Our manufacturing has declined as the cost of energy has soared, so for wind turbines – along with solar panels, electric vehicles and so much else – we must largely turn to fossil-fuelled economies such as China. No doubt the Chinese Communist Party, with its appalling human rights record, is very grateful.

And despite all this, we still need to maintain gas and nuclear back-up because we have yet to find a way to make the wind blow as we would like. Meanwhile, the amount of electricity we are having to import through subsea cables from the near-Continent has risen sharply to around 10 per cent.

Some adherents will continue to insist, with straight faces, that renewables are somehow cheaper than the alternatives. And the argument will, of course, still be made that the human race faces certain oblivion unless we continue down this road.

But we must, at the very least, be free to question these claims in a public debate on the wisdom or otherwise of net zero – like the one we should have had when MPs nodded the 2050 target through Parliament with minimum scrutiny in 2019. As economic reality bites ever harder, calls for this debate will only grow louder. Without it, many will fear that things really can only get worse.