Energy minister Kwasi Kwarteng, who met energy firms this morning, said the crisis shows the importance of the UK’s plan “to build a strong, home-grown renewable energy sector to further reduce our reliance on fossil fuels”. In rare unity, the UK government and its main political opposition seem to realise the only real long-term fix is to cut the UK’s reliance on gas by backing renewables and low-carbon alternatives to gas boilers, such as heat pumps. Yet a new nuclear plant would take at least a decade to build, and the financing model being considered would leave energy bill payers shouldering the cost if construction goes over budget and schedule. The UK’s nuclear power trade body says nuclear is the answer. Others are calling for levies supporting renewables to be shifted off electricity bills, which people would still need to pay through taxation. Elsewhere, some blame the energy price cap. But companies spent years failing to deliver shale gas under UK regulations. Today’s Daily Telegraph proposes fracking to boost domestic gas production. Gas prices will be the main problem this winter, but misguided solutions have been thrust to the fore. Read more: UK goes a week without coal but the renewables revolution is stalling Wholesale gas prices are up 176 per cent since the start of the year, and power prices in the past month are up 266 per cent on the average this year. Prices and carbon emissions are up, with ageing coal and mothballed gas power stations firing up again. It is also, to a much lesser degree, due to low output from wind power and a fire last week leaving a UK-France power link offline. The main reason for the current crisis is a shortage of gas supplies, due in part to outages in production in Norway and elsewhere, and demand from Asia.
That makes the UK heavily reliant on gas for energy, with 86 per cent of homes using it for heating and more than a third of electricity supplies coming from gas power plants.
In recent years, it has leaned on the fuel to ease the phase out of an even more polluting fossil fuel, coal. In the 1990s, the UK made a “dash for gas”. Soaring wholesale gas prices have left the UK in an energy crisis, with fears for vulnerable households as bills rise and a wave of energy firms folding. People in the UK face higher energy bills this winter