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The Net Zero Agenda’s Continued Collapse Into Chaos

by Ben Pile
28 May 2025 1:11 PM

Last week, Ofgem announced that the Energy Price Cap would be lowered. From July, average bill payers will see “a decrease of 7% compared to the cap set between April 1st to June 30th, 2025”. The likes of Ed Miliband were quick to capture the good news by reaffirming the Government’s commitment to the 2050 Net Zero and 2030 Clean Power agendas. But a closer look at the detail of the price cut and other news shows just how fragile those agendas really are.

The news that there would be a price cut was not unexpected. Energy price caps are announced quarterly. As reported here, the Spring (April-June) price cap rise was announced in February – the third since the Labour Government was elected in July last year on the promise of “lower bills”. “Energy bills are set to rise again due to a spike in global gas markets,” claimed Ed Miliband ahead of Ofgem’s February rise. But there is no such thing as “global gas markets”. And that “spike” had already passed.

A post-pandemic low price of gas on UK markets had occurred in February 2024 at around 56p per therm (29.3 kWh). But over the next year, this price increased to 142p, peaking on February 11th. On February 25th, Ofgem announced a 6.4% price cap increase for the second quarter of this year. But by the time of Ofgem’s announcement, a mere fortnight later, the price had fallen to 106p – a fall of 25%. Into the second quarter, the price fell further, reaching a low of 69p – or less than half of February’s spike price – on April 7th. The price then stabilised at around 83p (around 42% of the peak price).

“It’s great news the energy price cap is going down, but we have more to do”, tweeted Ed Milband in response to last week’s announcement from Ofgem – as if he and his policies had caused the price drop. “Our clean power mission is the route to long-term energy security and lower bills,” he added. Odd, isn’t it, that a 6.4% increase in the cap was blamed on (non-existent) “global gas markets”, but that a 7% drop in the cap, following a 42% reduction in UK gas prices, is not blamed on the same outside forces, but is instead given as cause to double down on the green agenda.

The clues are there for those whose capacity for simple maths is not hindered by green ideology… a 42% reduction in UK gas prices yielded only a 7% drop in the energy price cap. But doesn’t Miliband tell us that “global gas prices” are the cause of all our problems? 

And not just Milband. In the Times, the Green Blob’s favourite du jour talking point is reproduced uncritically by the newspaper’s Energy Editor, Emily Gosden. “Unlinking electricity prices from gas ‘would cut energy bills’,” claims the headline. According to this meme, remastered by energy market consultant Adam Bell, formerly Head of Energy Strategy at BEIS and Senior Policy Advisor at DECC, the “link” between gas prices and electricity prices could be “cut”. According to the article, “Britain’s wholesale market operates on a system of ‘marginal pricing’ whereby the most expensive plant needed to keep the lights on determines the price all generators are paid”.

This meme is now the go-to claim for anyone trying to counter Net Zero-critical commentary and analysis. On X, fancy-dress energy tycoon Dale Vince claimed “We need to ‘Break the link’ between gas and electricity prices now”. The problems, though, are obvious… 

Perhaps they are not obvious to Times journalists. But the likes of Vince and Bell are not disinterested parties. Vince’s interests in pushing gas out of the market are obvious. Bell, for his part, worked in government departments that manifestly caused this crisis in the first place, and so ought to be the last person to consult on fixing it. Moreover, prior to his energy policy roles in DECC and BEIS, Bell worked for green energy sector lobbyists RenewableUK and Westminster pressure group, the Green Alliance. The latter’s interventions, though not necessarily anything to do with Bell, ought nonetheless to orient journalists’ understanding. As the energy price crisis began to make itself known in late Summer 2021, the Green Alliance launched a campaign demanding the Government increase the VAT on domestic gas from 5% to the standard 20% rate – the equivalent of demanding MORE HYPOTHERMIA NOW!

That is to say that greens, be they wonks, lobbyists, ideologues or MPs, are callous and not in the least bit concerned with rising prices for any other reason than it being bad PR. And the sleight-of-hand that such Blobbers use to pull the wool over the eyes of journalists – who need little persuasion to abandon their own critical faculties – is to speak glibly about the wholesale market.

The problem is that domestic consumers do not pay wholesale prices for energy. Fancy-pants accounts of how “gas sets the price of electricity”, and how “breaking the link” would help, are misdirection. Gas is last in the merit order that determines wholesale electricity prices because policy requires that renewable energy generators have priority access to the grid. In a normal world, that “merit order” would be based on price. But the price that wind and solar farms get paid for the power they produce is not the same as the prices that appear on the wholesale market – the subsidies are tacked on, at some point between the wholesale and retail markets.

The lie can be exposed more clearly in a chart comparing wholesale and retail prices, thanks to Ofgem’s price cap since it came into effect on January 1st, 2019. This includes caps for the individual prices of electricity and gas. These are shown in the following chart, as is the “system average price” (SAP) of gas – i.e. the wholesale price of gas on the UK’s gas markets.

From April, electricity (shown in purple) was capped at 27p per kWh, and gas (red) capped at 7p per kWh. Underneath, the wholesale price of gas (in blue) can be seen falling from its February 2025 recent peak to just over half of that. Yet even the gas price cap fell just 9%, and the electricity cap less than 5%. Moreover, the electricity cap is four times higher than the gas cap. And even more moreover, the most recent price of gas, at about 2.8p per kWh, is barely more than a tenth of the current electricity price cap. If gas is more expensive than renewable energy, how can we be paying close to 1,000% of the wholesale price of gas for the equivalent electricity?

The conversion of gas into electricity is about 50% efficient (though the most advanced generators are 60% efficient). This means that the fuel costs of gas-fired power stations were just 5.6p/kWh during April – or just under a fifth of the electricity price cap. At the most recent auction for electricity supply contracts, solar farms won bids to supply electricity at 7.1p/kWh and offshore wind at 8.4p. And these prices do not take into account the cost of backup when there is no sun and no wind, or the cost of compensating operators when there is too much solar power or wind, or the other costs of balancing the grid and the hugely expensive network upgrades that are required to connect so many trickles of power to the grid.

Whinges from green tycoons and eco-wonks, reproduced by the supplicant press, that gas is “setting the price of electricity” are clearly simply lies, therefore. And it gets worse. Doubt was cast over the seemingly low prices that were achieved at the most recent auction when Danish wind developer giant Orsted cancelled its involvement in the Hornsea 4 wind farm project, as I discussed in my recent article. The green sector has deteriorated further since then. Last week, the Guardian reported that SSE had cut its “five-year investment plans by £3 billion blaming policy and planning delays”. Outgoing executive, Alistair Phillips-Davies, said the Guardian “called for stable market conditions and low risk to support its ambitions”. 

I bet he did. But a quarter of a century of almost completely unopposed government policy has sought to create these “stable market conditions” for renewable developers and investors. Indeed, the point of the CfD subsidy scheme was to eliminate all market volatility and guarantee prices at above the average price of power from gas to developers. We have been bent over backwards by such policies and had our domestic finances raided to ensure stability for them. No stability for us.

Ed Miliband’s cat is out of the bag. The crazed Secretary of State with the energy brief has signalled to all that nothing will sway him or the Government from the Clean Power 2030 agenda. Consequently, they can now hold their own projects to ransom: if they don’t get more “support” then they won’t be able to service the Government’s policy agenda. Even one-time Net Zero evangelist BP is at it, according to the Telegraph. The formerly guilt-ridden oil and gas company shed its emotional chief executive Bernard Looney in 2023 and now looks set to cancel his green commitments, including to a £2 billion hydrogen plant in the North East. Now, says the newspaper, BP “is currently in talks with the Government about whether greater state support can be provided”. Such green growth!

The lies and gaslighting will continue, of course, in the desperate attempt to deny reality to millions and millions of bill payers. But at some point, the arithmetic of ever-increasing demands from green energy will exhaust those bill payers’ capacity to pay. Perhaps the hope is that, by pushing gas out of the market now, the reality of high gas prices will be made, as laws of supply and demand would dictate. But it seems just as likely that green greed will keep pace with gas price rises, to feed off a bizarre government’s zealotry and intransigence. Enjoy the slightly lower energy prices. They’re not here to stay.

Tags: Ed MilibandEnergy CostsGreen AgendaNet Zero

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22 Comments
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Bill Bailey
Bill Bailey
1 month ago

It seems that we can’t rely on the government to be honest, nor the legacy media, the Tories are hopeless as are the LibNotDems, the Greens are absolute head cases. Dissenters are cancelled so we are in a bit of a pickle!

22
0
Purpleone
Purpleone
1 month ago
Reply to  Bill Bailey

Enter Reform from stage left… or…
not so much perhaps

2
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 month ago
Reply to  Purpleone

They’ve got their work cut out as they need to sort out immigration, Net Zero, broken NHS and public sector inefficiency. Don’t envy them! Needs an incredibly strong leader who is not afraid of been very unpopular. But if that doesn’t happen, I do think the UK is screwed 🙁

2
0
Gezza England
Gezza England
1 month ago
Reply to  robnicholson

Reform need to build a group of knowledgeable people to advise the leader but the problem there is the thin-skinned prima donna leader.

1
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 month ago
Reply to  Gezza England

Hmm, I’d say he was the opposite but Grok says he’s both thick and thin skinned!

https://x.com/i/grok/share/HUDAPffipvr099yyPk10g2M2O

Last edited 1 month ago by robnicholson
0
0
DiscoveredJoys
DiscoveredJoys
1 month ago

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

17
0
MajorMajor
MajorMajor
1 month ago

For now the price fluctuations are just a nuisance but manageable.
Once factories and offices start closing down because of electricity shortages and as a result people will have to be laid off, the fallacy of net zero will be clear to everyone.

By the way – Bernard Looney…? What a perfect name!

Last edited 1 month ago by MajorMajor
13
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 month ago
Reply to  MajorMajor

High energy prices are already causing problems in the hospitality industry which has been kicked when down so many times, I’ve lost count. COVID was a massive hit and then the subsequent perfectly predictable inflation due to borrowing trillions for furlough etc. It takes a lot of money to heat a big pub and the brewing process uses a lot of energy. Fixed terms started coming to and end leading to increased pub and brewery closures. Although there were too many breweries starting up over last 20 years.

Link this in with raw material prices increasing leading to pump prices going up and an industry already in decline due to lower numbers going to the pub, then the future for the British pub industry doesn’t look good.

In many places, once you loose the pub, you loose the final bit binding a community together 🙁

1
0
mrbu
mrbu
1 month ago
Reply to  robnicholson

… And don’t forget the cost of pubs and bars employing people to go round policing customers’ conversations, lest they utter something that might cause offence to a member of the snowflake crowd.

1
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 month ago
Reply to  mrbu

True – add that to the long list of “Kicked whilst down”. Pubs have managed with banter for hundreds of years. Latest bit of woke nonsense.

1
0
JXB
JXB
1 month ago

Price caps if set lower than the market would create, always result in shortages because suppliers cannot make enough money to cover costs and yield a return on their capital. This is why a number have gone belly up.

Price caps set higher than market always result in over supply and consumers paying too much.

We have a supply problem with electricity because intervention in the wholesale market with subsidies to wind and solar and penalties on gas (carbon tax, having to give way to wind and solar) distort prices pushing them much higher than market, and a glut of overpriced wind and solar when weather conditions are favourable so that retail suppliers cannot buy in a free market and consumers are paying too much over the odds and can look forward to shortages – black outs – when the energy market is stressed by cold weather, or failure of wind and solar to supply at critical times with insufficient gas/nuclear – and of course no coal – to meet the shortfall.

Much reliance is being placed on interconnectors, but that assumes other Countries have a surplus when we need it, and/or a number of other Countries do not have a heavy demand via interconnectors when we need juice.

Just like Spain, it’s a disaster set to happen, it’s not if, but when.

21
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Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
1 month ago

People are already saying the reason the country is circling the drain is because Net Zero hasn’t been done hard enough or quickly enough. Just like with the “pandemic”, the official debate is how the authorities “handled it” as opposed to questioning whether there was even a problem in the first place.

Everyone will go to heaven, except those who don’t want to. We have everything, but from time to time, a large enough group of people just don’t want to enjoy it, and don’t want others to enjoy it, either. Party poopers, basically. Laugh at them, rock on, party harder.

Last edited 1 month ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
12
0
EUbrainwashing
EUbrainwashing
1 month ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

Maybe there is a ‘problem’ that NetZero is designed to address but that problem is not an anthropogenic CO2 driven warming climate but indeed it’s very climatic antithesis’.

7
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 month ago
Reply to  Marcus Aurelius knew

Depressing isn’t it.

0
0
Art Simtotic
Art Simtotic
1 month ago

Meanwhile at the other end of the interconnectors, “Lights Out, Europe: The Cost of Brussels’ Energy Fantasy…”

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/commentary/spain-blackout-green-deal-failure/

“…What was marketed as a smooth transition toward renewable energy has turned into a forced green agenda, with no viable alternatives and little regard for its impact on competitiveness, system stability, or citizens’ well-being.”

Last edited 1 month ago by Art Simtotic
8
0
Tyrbiter
Tyrbiter
1 month ago
Reply to  Art Simtotic

Green agenda, citizens’ well-being. Not compatible, so damn the citizens.

6
0
RTSC
RTSC
1 month ago

A Government which delivered the worst deal of the century and a £50 billion bill for taxpayers (Chagos) because the corrupt UN and ICJ told them to, is not going to defy the UN over Agenda 2030 and the instruction to destroy British manufacturing on the altar of Net Zero and transfer industry, jobs and wealth to the “more deserving.”

6
0
robnicholson
robnicholson
1 month ago
Reply to  RTSC

We’re screwed aren’t we?

0
0
WillP
WillP
1 month ago

Remember when we were told by the bien pensant jerk circle that Germany and Europe were “addicted to cheap Russian gas”?

1
0
Hester
Hester
1 month ago

“But we have more to do” tweeted Ed. What he should be saying which would be the truth.
“But YOU have more to do”, because its us who are paying for Ed’s fantasy, for Ed’s place in the holy church of misanthropy. Ed doesn’t have to do or sacrifice anything, Ed has his expenses paid by us, Ed gets to live in homes paid for by us, Ed gets to have “donations” from the people who he really serves whilst dictating more things for us to do in order to impoverish ourselves.
You see the Labour Party can’t even tell the truth in a tweet, they are not in this with us, they are the makers of our misfortune and misery, there is no we involving them, they don’t suffer for their causes at all.

3
0
mrbu
mrbu
1 month ago
Reply to  Hester

It’s not just the Labour Party either. There are countless film & TV celebrities, wealthy industrialists, well-heeled politicians of many different hues, and even royalty, who will happily jet around the world, lecturing the less affluent on how we must all make sacrifices to save the planet. Not only are they hypocritical, they’re also being callous towards those in society who will be hit hardest by the associated price and tax increases. “We’re all in this together,” they say. Really? When £150 extra expenditure per month is barely a scratch on their monthly income, but for some people it’s going to determine how may hot meals they can have?

1
0
Gezza England
Gezza England
1 month ago

It is not just here that Net Zero is having problems. Denmark and the Netherlands got no bids for their recent rounds of windmills. The Danes are going away to consider upping the taxpayer subsidy to make this very cheap energy profitable.

0
0

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