After last week’s budget (well, before actually!), the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast that green subsidies were set to increase our energy bills by £8.1 billion a year by 2030, taking the total cost to £18.6 billion.
However, the Telegraph has discovered that tucked away in their small print, the OBR has admitted this understates the likely eventual cost:
Households face paying billions more in energy bills to fund green subsidy costs that were not outlined in Rachel Reeves’s Budget last week.
The Office for Budget Responsibility revealed in its latest economic assessment that £1 billion a year will be added to household energy bills to fund Ed Miliband’s next auction for renewables projects, known as ‘allocation round 7’ (AR7).
Costs of the scheme were not outlined in the Chancellor’s Budget. Instead, they were revealed in a footnote to the OBR’s Fiscal Outlook report released on the same day.
The revelation will cast doubt on Ms Reeves’ claims that Labour is bringing down the cost of living. It also comes amid a clash between the OBR and the Chancellor about whether she told the truth about the state of the public finances in the run-up to the Budget.
Until the auction results are known, we cannot know what prices have been agreed. Nevertheless, the prices Ed Miliband has offered for the next tranche of offshore wind are double the cost of gas power, excluding carbon taxes. The £1 billion quoted won’t be far off the mark.
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“OFGEM has deceitfully claimed these upgrades will eventually reduce bills by £80 a year” – £80 down after having risen by hundreds?? Rational people do not call that a saving.
Any sane person can see this is sheer lunacy, billions of £’s spraffed away because of idiots like Milliband, get him sectioned for humanitys sake, why are we continuing to let this happen?.
The OBR is one of those things we didn’t seem to need for centuries, same as a Supreme Court. Dump it.
Some of the gas pipeline work is just maintenance and repair, such as replacing old ductile cast iron pipes with modern plastic ones. I’ve seen that done in a suburban area. Apart from wear and tear, I think the idea of changing to a mixture of hydrogen and methane in distribution might be part of it, in an effort to mitigate leakage using H.
Incidentally, the cheapest form of energy to my place on the fixed price deal for next year after 13/12 is gas, by a long way, c.f day and night rate electric.
Nothing to do with any use of a hydrogen gas mixture. Polyethylene pipe is more durable than cast iron and can be welded using a hotplate. Not totally leak free as the new main they installed in my road filled with water when the water table rose. Increased traffic and heavier trucks can cause vibration cracks. When I worked in the City there was a big programme of gas main replacement put down to bomb damage.
The OBR seems to have carelessly forgotten the “R”. Forecasts are not even fairly presented if intentional omissions are given in footnotes.
“None of these upgrades would be necessary if it was not for Net Zero targets.”
Say no more.
Pretending to save the planet FIRST. —-People LAST. ——The greatest pseudo scientific fraud ever perpetrated. The Green Agenda has all the hallmarks of a Classic SCAM. —Urgency, Morality, Settled Science, Cannot be Questioned, Mus Act Now, Think of the Children etc etc. —-There is no Climate Crisis. It is an eco socialist fraud.
Meanwhile in the real World, in the last year China has commissioned approx 94.5 GW of additional coal fired electricity generation capacity to add to its current fleet of 1200 coal fired power plants. For reference 94.5GW is approx 3 times what the entire UK generates from all sources be it gas, nuclear, solar, wind etc etc Can’t wait for that cheap energy!
Ed Miliband needs sectioning with all his other net zero lunatics.
Absolutely correct. We need protection from his mad, insane ideology. HE is the danger, not the climate.