From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Doug Brodie
A new bombshell report destroys the case for Net Zero:
Executive Summary
The UK’s expensive electricity is weighing on the nation. Rising bills are repressing the discretionary income of British households and high industrial electricity prices are discouraging inbound investment. This paper quantifies the logical failures that have led to high prices and how they are defeating the very reason why the costs were incurred in the first place: to meet environmental objectives. Expensive electricity is hampering the electrification of heating, transport and industrial activity, pushing progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions ever further away.
Government policy has started to recognise that there is an electricity cost problem, but efforts to redistribute costs are mere symptom management. Instead, policymakers must engage with a major cause of high prices – an expensive power system, driven by the wider costs that come with intermittent generation sources.
Onward have commissioned an independent study to quantify the full system costs of continuing with the current policy direction, versus cost savings that can be achieved by taking a new approach. It models a power system that prioritises firm generation capacity, responding to demand, rather than forcing consumers to react to the vagaries of the British weather. This plan includes a diversified mix of nuclear, renewables and gas generation, which builds a much cheaper power system that can be used to electrify and decarbonise more of the economy.
The savings are substantial. The alternative policy pathway saves £320 billion between 2030 and 2050, and reduces system costs by 20% in 2040 versus “business as usual”. Savings are made across four major areas:
- £137 billion in network spending, thanks to a higher utilisation firm power system with supply located closer to demand
- £94 billion from lower wholesale prices, thanks to the removal of carbon taxes
- £67 billion in lower spend on balancing and ancillary services
- £22 billion across generation subsidies and the Capacity Market
Realising savings of this scale requires a shift away from the current central planning model, to a system that allocates the costs of intermittent generation to the causative generators, rather than sending a bill to the end consumer. This paper sets out an alternative policy pathway, to build a power system that allows consumers to access affordable electricity when they need it, cutting bills and increasing economic growth. In turn, cheap electricity can drive the adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps, via consumer preference, and not state mandates. This is a win-win, for growth and the climate.
This is the report commissioned by Onward:
These are the key takeaways:
I have copied a few of the charts:
Onward are a highly reputable economic think tank, at the forefront of forward thinking.
The indisputable facts they have put forward must be the strongest argument yet about abandoning Ed Miliband’s mad dash to decarbonise the electricity system.
That policy lies at the very heart of the Net Zero agenda.
