By Paul Homewood
.
What an utterly dishonest article!
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/energy-bills-gas-electricity-renewables-b2672760.html
According to the Independent:
“In general, electricity from renewables should be cheaper to generate than from gas, which would bring bills down for consumers.”
They go on to claim that the biggest driver of high electricity prices, however, is the UK’s marginal pricing model, which means that electricity prices are mostly dictated by gas prices.
There is not a single mention of the cost of subsidies for renewables, which are by far the biggest driver of high prices, and which will add £12.9 billion to bills this year.
Nor is there any mention of system balancing costs, running at £2 billion, required to manage intermittency. Nor is there any mention of carbon pricing, which the Bank of England admitted this week has needlessly pushed up prices.
Nor is there any mention of the fact that even new wind farms will be paid more than the current gas-basede market price.
The article becomes even more ridiculous with this comment:
Building new renewable energy projects requires high levels of upfront capital, so businesses need to be sure they can recoup their investment; meaning they depend upon stable pricing.
Yet Dr Staffell says that power companies will still turn a profit without the artificial inflation linked to gas prices.
“Pricing reform would just make everything a bit more efficient and a bit fairer,” he added
Dr Staffel is supposedly an energy researcher at Imperial College, but he clearly does not understand how our energy pricing system works. New renewable energy projects will be awarded Contracts for Difference, which gives them a guaranteed price, not a market price based on gas.
The Independent even refer to our friend Bob Ward as Bob Hope!! Mind you, I have always said the policy director at the Grantham Research Institute was a bit of a clown!
The whole article, of course, was written as a puff piece for Miliband’s crazy renewable plans, which will see electricity bills skyrocket, not fall.