By Paul Homewood
In the GB News report yesterday, “Energy bills set to soar by £900 a year due to net zero push, experts warn”, which covered Gordon Hughes’ work, there was this response from DESNZ:
“A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson said: “We wholly reject these findings, which are fundamentally incorrect on what has driven higher energy prices.
“Every family and business has paid the price of rocketing energy bills because previous governments failed to invest at scale over many years in the clean, secure home-grown power our country needed, so we have been left exposed to volatile international fossil fuel markets.
“As shown by the National Energy System Operator’s independent report, clean power by 2030 is achievable and will deliver a more secure energy system, which could see a lower cost of electricity and lower bills.”
It’s the same bog standard claim that has been trotted out repeatedly by Miliband for a few years now, that if we had built more renewables, our bills would have been lower.
It is of course a totally fictitious claim, but now it has been made officially by DESNZ, they must either prove it or withdraw it.
The facts are very simple.
The Spectator data tracker shows that cumulatively CfD subsidies have already cost billpayers £9.98 billion since the scheme was introduced in 2016. And the cost continues to grow, year in, year out.
If we had built more wind and solar farms, this cost would have been even higher.
https://data.spectator.co.uk/energy
Even onshore wind, though cheaper than offshore, has been paid an average subsidy of £13.79/MWh over the period.
I have asked DESNZ through FOI to confirm:
1) Whether they actually made the above claim
2) To provide the calculations to back it up.