By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
FACT CHECKING BBC VERIFY!
The headline alone gives a hint that the article itself is a pile of misleading rubbish!
A more suitable headline would have been “Energy bills are going up because there is more green power”.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkep1vx3mro
The report begins:
Energy bills will rise by more than expected from April, following an announcement from the regulator Ofgem.
But Labour pledged in its manifesto: "We will save families hundreds of pounds on their bills, not just in the short term, but for good." It also promised bills would come down by "up to £300 by 2030".
Responding to the price cap rise, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said it was due to "our reliance on the fossil fuel markets" and added: "We’re acting to bring down bills for everyone with our mission for clean, home-grown power that we control."
The government wants to remove nearly all fossil fuels from UK electricity production by 2030.
More power is coming from renewable sources than ever before, so why isn’t this translating into cheaper electricity bills?
It recognises that we have some of the highest electricity prices in the world, and then goes on to say:
The largest, and most variable, component of a UK customer’s electricity bill is the "wholesale" price. This is the cost at which suppliers buy it from the companies that generate it.
Other parts of the bill include "network" costs for operating, maintaining and upgrading the power grid, and "policy" costs, which include government levies to help fund environmental projects.
The main reason for the spikes in electricity bills over the past few years has been changes to wholesale costs. This is linked to an increase in international gas prices.
The main reason why electricity prices are currently high is because the cost of gas – which is what sets the electricity price – is also high," said a spokesperson from the Climate Change Committee, the government’s independent adviser on cutting emissions.
In the long term, renewables "will be bringing down overall energy bills, and specifically electricity bills, for the UK," argues Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial College London.
There is an oblique reference to high renewable costs in the past:
Strike prices were expensive, but have fallen considerably, apart from a small rise from 2022-24 linked to global supply chain pressures.
But it is phrased in such a way as to fool readers into thinking that we are no longer paying these prices. There is certainly nowhere in the article that refers to just how much of our high electricity prices is still due to subsidising renewables. Instead they refer to wholesale prices as the largest component of bills, and the CCC’s lie about the cost of gas.
The figures as supplied by OFGEM tell a totally different story.
Since 2015, wholesale costs, (excluding CfD and Capacity Market subsidies, which OFGEM include), have increased their component of the cap from £260 to £399 for a typical household, an increase of 53%. But this is virtually all accounted for by a rise of 52% in RPI.
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Prices as at April to June
Of course there have been ups and downs in wholesale costs, but overall they have changed little in real terms. In fact, in reality they have fallen, as the costs shown by OFGEM include the effect of carbon pricing, which should really be seen as yet another subsidy for renewables.
When we look at all the other costs lumped into the price cap, mostly subsidies and network costs, we see they have doubled from £325 to £648. Renewable subsidies alone account for £210, and most of the extra grid costs are related to intermittent renewable generation in one way or another.
Sometimes gas prices go up, as they have done in the last few months. And sometimes they go down. But overall wholesale prices have pretty much followed the RPI.
It is not gas prices or wholesale prices which are responsible for the UK’s sky high electricity prices. It is renewable energy.
It is astonishing, if unsurprising, that BBC Verify can devote a whole report on the topic, without once even mentioning the fact, never mind quantifying it.