In his wide ranging review of energy costs for the UK government, Prof. Dieter Helm says ‘the cost of energy is too high, and higher than necessary to meet the Climate Change Act (CCA) target and the carbon budgets. Households and businesses have not fully benefited from the falling costs of gas and coal, the rapidly falling costs of renewables, or from the efficiency gains to network and supply costs which come from smart technologies. Prices should be falling, and they should go on falling into the medium and longer terms’. And he sets out his ideas for enabling that to happen. To simplify things, he wants to combine support systems and taxes into a universal carbon price and a unified equivalent firm power auction process.
Environmental Research Web 28th Oct 2017 read more »
The business secretary has been asked to explain the government’s stance on energy price caps, ahead of a Commons hearing this week. Rachel Reeves, who chairs the business, energy and industrial strategy select committee, has asked Greg Clark to clarify whether capping bills is the government’s “unequivocal intention”. The policy, first mooted in the Tory election manifesto, has been beset by confusion. The most recent iteration was a draft bill published by Clark that suggested a cap lasting until 2020, unless the regulator Ofgem asks for an extension. The big six suppliers are lobbying hard against restrictions. Reeves, the Labour MP for Leeds West, was said to be reluctant to spend committee time on the proposal if it could subsequently be dropped. Last week, a government review led by Dieter Helm, an Oxford University academic, concluded that the energy market was “not fit for purpose”. Helm said that the cost of energy in Britain was “significantly higher than it needs to be”.
Times 29th Oct 2017 read more »
