UK's Journey to Net Zero

Introduction As these cold winter months slowly turn into spring and our household electricity consumption begins to fall my  thoughts often turn to the question of why electricity is so expensive and, more especially, why Ofgem's  domestic gas price cap is around one quarter of the price cap for domestic electricity.   For example, in January 2025 the electricity price cap rose to 24.86p/kWh along with a standing charge of 60.99p/day against 6.34p/kWh for gas and a 31.65p/day standing charge.  Furthermore, in April 2025 these caps will rise to 27.03p/kWh for electricity against 6.99p/kWh for gas.   How can this be? Why should a unit of electricity cost almost four times that of gas?  And it seems I’m not alone in asking this question because reports from the both the   BBC and Apple News   have recently appeared in the media citing several reasons for this anomaly: ranging from high wholesale gas prices, the cost of subsidies...

Dr Alan Jones, PhD, CEng, FIET. Independent Researcher 6 March 2024   Summary Achieving Net Zero places the insatiable demand for energy under the spotlight, especially energy derived from hydro-carbon sources.  Imagine a world where hydro-carbon based fuels no longer exist and are replaced instead by electricity, and particularly low-no carbon electricity from nuclear and renewables, especially wind and solar.   This paper takes a look at what that might mean for the typical UK household and what, if any, the scale of energy savings might be as well as the cost to the consumer.     The results are revealing – there is cause for hope for the climate, but the benefit does not necessarily translate into cost savings for the majority of end users due to structural issues with the domestic pricing of electricity in relation to gas and petrol.   1 Introduction This paper examines what it means for the average UK household, the type of household the Ene...