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by Andrew Montford,
In some ways I pity Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, who, on the latest edition of their The Rest is Politics podcast, have put themselves through an hour of Net Zero word soup from the new Climate Change Committee CEO Emma Pinchbeck. I have listened to it (or as much as I could endure) so you don’t have to!
But it is alarming that someone like this is anywhere near the levers of power. Take Ms Pinchbeck’s views on electricity costs, for example. In one place, she says:
Gas is more expensive than renewables. And it means that the electricity price that would be cheaper is driven up by the cost of gas. And so our electricity price tracks the gas price.”
To anyone who understands electricity markets, this remark is positioned somewhere between ‘misleading’ and ‘deceptive’: it is only wholesale markets that track gas prices, and since gas prices are now only a whisker above their long-term average, they can no longer be (correctly) blamed for pushing bills up.
Moreover, she repeatedly invites Campbell, Stewart and the listeners to believe that renewables are not the problem. She mentions ‘cheap renewables’ three times, as well as other terms insinuating the same idea.
But in another part of the interview, she seems to recognise that it’s policy costs pushing bills up:
Our policy costs sit on the electricity part of our bill… what we have accidentally done is make the fuel of the future…more expensive with a policy choice.
(The ellipses there cover a positive deluge of word soup, but I think I have captured her meaning correctly.)
What is more, she seems to understand that those policy charges to consumers are covering the costs of all the green nonsense:
…the decision to put those costs on electricity is in one way logical because some of that is financing new electricity infrastructure.”
She is not wrong. Analysis of Ofgem data (Figure 1), shows that policy costs are now 33% of the electricity bill, 20% of it being renewables subsidies and most of the rest being Net Zero related. Net Zero is also driving up grid costs (the red sections of the pie).
Figure 1: Breakdown of median electricity bill
Figure 2 shows the difference in bills today and bills ten years ago. It is almost solely about Net Zero.
Figure 2: How bills changed between 2015 and 2025.
Having somehow contrived to get two somewhat contradictory thoughts – ‘gas is driving up electric bills’ and ‘renewables subsidies are driving up electricity bills’ – in her head, Ms Pinchbeck seems mystified that people find her unconvincing.
So when they hear people like me telling them that renewables are cheap or these technologies are cheap and they see their bill, they think…we must be making it up.’
And they would be right to think so.
Ms Pinchbeck proceeds to her solution. Which is to move those policy costs off electricity bills and onto taxation. This in an odd remedy, given that she has told everyone that electricity bills track gas prices.
It is also remarkable given she clearly understands that the policy levies represent the costs of “new electricity infrastructure”. As most of my readers probably know, prices convey information about underlying costs, supply and demand to buyers. Removing levies from electricity bills would simply destroy that information flow. In other words, the Pinchbeck solution would have electricity buyers and sellers operate entirely in the dark.
This is, of course, where the Soviet Union went wrong. I suppose we should cut Ms Pinchbeck some slack, because she was only seven when the wall came down. And I might cut Messrs Campbell and Stewart some slack for failing to pick up the contradictions or idiocies – neither are experts, and Ms Pinchbeck’s word soup is nothing if not impenetrable. But it will still be be depressing if, having appointed someone so young to such an important position, the UK has to learn the lessons of history all over again.
Source: https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com
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