Excessive electricity prices exhaust the British with efforts to convert to clean energy

For a period of time, the British environmental consensus appeared firmly, and during the second decade of the 21st century to its early twenty, the “conservatives” and the “Labor Party” struggled on one of the most keen to remove carbon from the country, and the public seemed excited as well, as long as wind turbines will not disturb it.

Among the few decisive measures taken by the Labor Party in its first troubled year in the government is an ambitious plan to convert the electricity network into a “green network” by 2030, that is, half a decade before the Conservative Party’s goal, and faster than any other large country.

This harmony has collapsed at a time when conservatives now describe the climate goals they reached as “impossible”, while the “Reform” movement – which seeks to cancel environmental support – is advancing in opinion polls, while former workers’ prime minister, Tony Blair, warned that Britain’s climatic strategy is “failed”.

Beyond this anxiety lies a harsh fact: British electricity prices have become expensive. For decades, these prices rarely moved away from the prices of the rest of Europe, but now the home bills have become 20% higher than the average prices of major European economies, and industry bills are 90% higher, while the gap with America is more clear.

Gas and electricity price

Britain’s problems began when natural gas prices increased with the start of the war in Ukraine, and this led to the high costs of electricity throughout Europe, but Britain was severely damaged, and since it kept the coal away from the network in the first decade of the current century, the gas (as a marginal product) was the one that always determines the electricity price.

In France, nuclear energy is usually the one that determines prices, and in Germany is often the specified coal, but in some countries it dominates the electrical energy, and the wind and solar energy rarely do so, as their production differs greatly according to the weather, and networks usually need some energy from another place.

Meanwhile, Britain’s efforts to use clean energy began to affect bills, as paying the costs of new towers and wires that will link a more complex network, as energy generates throughout the country, raises the network costs.

The same applies to the “cost budget”, where generators are paid to alleviate the fluctuations of renewable energy sources, and the commitment of renewable energy shall be formed (which is an abolition support system in the middle of the first decade of this century, with the continuing payments until the late thirties of this century), more than the tenth of the average invoice.

Since 2019, green subsidies and network costs (including some new expenses that are not related to paying clean energy) have contributed to about two -thirds of what the wholesale prices for electricity contributed, and in the real rise in bills, and it is expected that each of them will continue to rise, in turn represents the “carbon prices” that the gas generators pay a quarter of this sentence, a share that may increase as soon as they are linked Britain is its most expensive European emissions system, and carbon pricing is the way to reduce global warming emissions, and is imposed on those who cause carbon dioxide emission.

Wind Energy

Unfortunately, Britain was also forced – due to the bad geographical luck and poor organization – to rely on the energy of the marine wind, which is more expensive and carbon -free energy, to be the backbone of its renewed network, and the solar panels have become very cheap, which causes a radical shift in the energy economies in the hottest regions in the world, but Britain gets less than sunlight and consumes most of its energy in Winter, the excessive organization in hardening means a sharp rise in the costs and tables of nuclear power plants, and wild wind energy often represents a fierce battle with its opponents who refuse to build turbines in their lands.

The problem is that the prices of sea wind energy are no longer decreased, as it seems that the prices of “solar cells” that are made in factories and built normally, are still decreased with huge production, while marine turbines with skyscrapers are more like civil engineering projects, the largest -size turbine is more efficient, but transport and installation are more difficult.

Britain buys “marine wind energy”, like other renewable energy sources, through special contracts, and under this system, the government is the electricity suppliers at a fixed price, rising with inflation, for a period ranging between 15 and 20 years, and if the prevailing prices are less, the government pays the difference, and if it is higher, the electricity generation companies pay the government.

The cheapest tour of the “Marine Wind Energy” decades was in 2022, while the tour that followed in 2023 was not bidding, as the government set the ceiling of its price very low, and prices rose at the auction of 2024.

The 2025 round in August comes with a higher price ceiling, and one of the government’s plan was to support new projects to reduce costs before most construction operations were completed, and this was initially successful, but progress stopped.

Electoral scale

And now Britain needs to buy large quantities of “marine wind energy” quickly, to achieve its goals in the field of clean energy.

And all this makes the policies of the “greening” electrical network fraught with risks, and the Energy Minister, Ed Miliband, says that the average annual electricity bills should decrease by 300 pounds, by 2030, and without the decrease in gas prices, it seems that it will likely rise, and at the present time, the removal of carbon is popular, and the blame for the war in Ukraine is still feasible, but this subsidy seems to Fragile.

Opinion polls conducted by the company “Moore In Kamin” in the interest of the “Economist” magazine indicate that energy bills are the most important scale that voters will use when making the decision to re -election the Labor Party, and the enthusiasm of climate work in surveys quickly diminishes if it costs dozens of additional pounds monthly.

These days, carbon emissions in Britain are not far from the goals set by the United Nations, and with the gradual disposal of coal so quickly, the United Kingdom has already succeeded in reducing emissions by more than any other rich country. About “Economist”

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Opposite risks

The bet behind the current clean energy efforts is that Britain is able to be a pioneer, and to show how to remove the carbon from the network easily, even without cheap solar energy, but taking this possibility seriously means tolerance of the opposite risks, as the failed shift will not be a model, but rather a warning.

• Britain currently needs to buy large quantities of sea wind energy quickly, to achieve its goals in the field of clean energy.