The Government has been accused of getting its sums “spectacularly” wrong on the energy market and locking customers into excessive prices for years to come, in an independent review commissioned by ministers. Professor Dieter Helm, who was asked in the summer to carry out the review, said prices had gone up for many households and businesses despite lower wholesale costs and greater efficiencies. He also warned of a “cliff edge” for electricity capacity leading up to 2025 amid uncertainty about when the much-delayed new nuclear reactor at Hinkley comes online. The report said that Government models of energy costs in the first half of the current decade had at times been “spectacularly bad”, as they predicted surging fossil fuel prices.
Sky News 25th Oct 2017 read more »
John Constable, energy editor of the Global Warming Policy Forum: Subsidies to renewable electricity in the UK cost £5 billion a year at present and will rise to more than £8 billion a year by 2020, all drawn from the bills of domestic and business consumers. One third of this hits households directly through their electricity bills – about 20 per cent of the bill in fact – while the other two thirds, paid in the first instance by businesses, is passed on to households in the general cost of living. Government has obfuscated these facts, and since 2014 has published no price impacts. When costs could not be hidden, the government has claimed that climate policy made them unavoidable. Now, in an authoritative and excoriating report commissioned by the government, Dieter Helm, professor of energy policy at Oxford University, has torn away the fig leaves covering the government’s nakedness. Policy interventions, he tells us, are so numerous and badly designed that they have resulted in costs well in excess of what is needed to meet emissions targets. These subsidies will cost a hair-raising £100 billion by 2030. “Much more decarbonisation could have been achieved for less,” Professor Helm drily observes.
Times 27th Oct 2017 read more »
Consumers are paying too much for their energy because of “excessive” green taxes added to bills, a damning Government-commissioned report has found. A series of “spectacularly bad” decisions by ministers have “unnecessarily burdened” households and businesses with higher green energy subsidies than necessary, according to Prof Dieter Helm, of Oxford University. The cost of renewable energy – as well as gas, coal and oil – has fallen but the benefits have not been passed on because ministers locked the taxpayer into long-term contracts that overestimated those costs, Prof Helm found. Green taxes will cost the average household almost £150 from next year, according to energy firms.
Telegraph 25th Oct 2017 read more »
Edie 25th Oct 2017 read more »
Revisited: In-depth: The challenges facing the Dieter Helm ‘energy cost’ review.
Carbon Brief 8th August 2017 read more »
The ETI has launched a new project which aims to identify whether there are credible opportunities for reducing the costs of generating electricity using nuclear power. The Nuclear Cost Drivers Project will identify and analyse historic, contemporary and future nuclear power projects to identify areas of nuclear power plant design, construction and operation to deliver potential cost reductions. This will be achieved through the development and application of a comprehensive, cost study evidence base. It is being led by CleanTech Catalyst, Ltd. (CTC) working with Lucid Strategy. Dr Tim Stone will act as an Independent Reviewer. The project will run until April 2018.
ETI 26th Oct 2017 read more »
