British households face a £400-a-year price hike by 2035 under Labour’s green energy plans – £150 extra on electricity bills and another £250 piled on to everyday shopping as rising power costs ripple through the economy, a major analysis warns.
The shock figure comes from pressure group Net Zero Watch, using official data and detailed modelling by Professor Gordon Hughes, a former World Bank energy adviser and leading energy economist.
The UK currently has the highest electricity prices in the developed world, and Labour has pledged to reduce costs with its clean green energy “revolution”.
However, the new report – Fixing the Electricity System – says Labour’s “Clean Power by 2030” agenda will instead lock Britain into soaring electricity costs for decades, which it claims will “turn the UK into one of the most expensive decarbonisation experiments in the developed world”.
For years, ministers have blamed high bills on volatile gas prices, including the effects of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine.
According to Net Zero Watch, Britain’s electricity system – which currently costs around £75 billion a year – will soar to over £90 billion by the early 2030s under Labour’s energy plans.
That translates, the report says, into around £400 per year on the cost of living – on top of what people already pay.
The new research echoes concerns from big energy suppliers, including Octopus Energy and E.ON, which told a select committee of MPs last month: “Even if gas prices halved or fell to zero, electricity bills would still rise,” due to Government green policies.
In a previous interview with the podcast GB News Originals, leading energy expert from Edinburgh University Professor Gordon Hughes said Labour’s claims that its green energy plan will cut bills by 20 per cent are “simply absurd”.
The Net Zero Watch analysis states that under the Labour Government set-up, high price rises will soon be baked into the structure of the system itself.
It says part of the extra cost is because customers are paying for a renewable system and a full fleet of gas-fired stations at the same time. This is because wind and solar power are not consistent and can’t always deliver power on demand.
Another cost, they say, is payouts handed to operators to shut down turbines when it is too windy for the grid to handle – known as “constraint payments.” These already cost billpayers an estimated £2 billion a year and are forecast to soar as more wind is built.
Gordon Hughes spoke to Lucy Johnston on GB News Originals
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GB NEWS ORIGINALS
A third cost is new transmission lines, undersea cables and substations to get power from new wind farms – often based in remote Scottish waters and uplands – to people’s houses.
All these extra costs will be increased further by fixed prices that are guaranteed by the Government for wind and solar schemes – known as “Contracts for Difference,” Net Zero Watch says.
The report concludes that even if wholesale prices fall – or gas becomes cheap – British households will stay locked into expensive green power deals well into the 2040s.
Experts say this is why the UK is locked into permanently higher electricity prices, and even cutting gas prices – or axing some subsidies – won’t bring bills down.
Andrew Montford fears the Government is slapping Britons with the highest electricity prices in the developed world
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GB NEWSDirector of Net Zero Watch Andrew Montford warned: “The UK is already a world leader – in how not to do a green transition.
“We’ve shown the world how to deliver the highest electricity prices in the developed world while pretending renewables are cheap.”
He added: “No serious country is looking at Britain’s climate policy and saying, ‘We want that.’ They see an energy system that is eye-wateringly expensive and dangerously fragile.”
The report warns Net Zero is becoming a “war on the poor” – hitting those on the lowest incomes hardest.
Andrew Montford says many high-earners can absorb another £400-a-year. But for families already choosing between heating and eating, he says the impact will be brutal: “More and more people will face the choice of whether they heat their homes at all, or sit in the cold to save money. That is the real cost of these policies.”
He says Britain is now pushing ahead with one of the most expensive decarbonisation plans in the developed world, even as other nations quietly step back from extreme targets.
This includes Germany, which is reopening coal plants and rowing back on heat-pump mandates; the US, which is facing fierce state-level resistance to Net Zero rules; as well as China and India, which are still expanding coal fleets for decades.
A Government spokesman said: “We categorically reject these claims, which wilfully overlook the benefits of homegrown clean power.
“Wholesale gas costs for households remain 75 per cent higher than they were before Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the main reason energy bills remain high.“The only way to bring down energy bills for good is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will get the UK off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel prices and onto clean, homegrown power that we control.”