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    Why Britain pays more for electricity
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    Why Britain pays more for electricity

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    30 Comments

    1. AlwaysCreamCrackered on

      The current suppliers have way too much power and just continue to pylon more and more costs to their customers.

    2. Prudent_Conference48 on

      I installed a gas fire rather than electric because electricity is so much more expensive than gas.

    3. LopsidedLegs on

      Multiple reasons. We peg our electricity prices based upon the most expensive production type – gas. Also under the Tories investment in green energy, green solutions (eg home insulation), energy infrastructure tanked. Add in effective banning of onshore wind production we lost 14 years of potential to reduce energy usage and expanse renewable production.

      A failure to act with long term vision.

    4. walk3r101 on

      Electric price is high because the government purposely sold it to a private firm so they can add tax to it to make money. Look at some other countries where the water and electricity is owned by the people.

    6. weeman3333 on

      One other big factor is its mostly owned by foreign companies and essentially our extortionate bills subsidise their own nations much lower bills

    8. Hats4Cats on

      We didn’t invest in nuclear power stations. You can’t skip a tech tree without consequences. 

    9. NafariousJabberWooki on

      Corruption. It’s the answer for any “Why do Brits pay more for….” question.
      But it’s done very politely, so we don’t call it that, might offend.

    10. RevolutionaryPop1331 on

      So it’s in line with the other high costs like transport, childcare and nobody notices 😅

    11. chronicnerv on

      Here’s the quick story

      Before 2022, Europe (including the UK indirectly) got a lot of its gas from Russia through Nord Stream 1. It was pretty cheap and reliable. Then in late September 2022, some serious sabotage happened. Not just one, but three out of four Nord Stream pipeline strings were blown up, two pipes in Nord Stream 1 and one in Nord Stream 2. Only one pipeline string wasn’t damaged, but that one was never even put into service.

      So basically, most of the cheap Russian gas pipeline supply got cut off overnight. Because of this, Europe had to scramble for other gas sources. The main alternative became US LNG, which is way more expensive because of the costs to liquefy and ship it.

      On top of that, new trade deals and politics mean Europe (and the UK) are more tied to the US for energy now and that usually means higher prices and less control. The UK gets hit especially hard because it doesn’t have large gas storage and depends a lot on gas for heating and electricity, plus it feels the global market prices pretty directly.

      So yeah, the Nord Stream sabotage basically forced Europe onto a pricier energy path, and that’s why your electricity bills went up.

    12. mishaxz on

      don’t Brits pay more for just about everything? that was always my impression of the UK

    13. bigjig125 on

      Britain also pays most for public transport compared to anywhere in Europe. Rip off Britain

    14. zwifter11 on

      One possible reason why we pay more is, idiots in the UK refuse to have nuclear power, so when electricity demand outstrips supply, we have to import electricity from France. Guess how France makes their abundance of electricity

      As I write this, the UK is currently generating only 87.4% of its electricity. We’re importing 4 GW from France. And another 1.67 GW through Belgium and Norway.

    15. Technical-Mind-3266 on

      Marginal pricing coupled with the fact we stopped storing large quantities of gas in 2017 to meet climate legislation.

      We used to buy it cheaply at low demand and store it avoiding the surge pricing of the monopolies when winter hit, but now we no longer store it we’re at the behest of the few places that sell gas.

      We could break the marginal pricing link, but companies will likely increase the price of renewables to offset the missing funds for purchasing high cost gas.

      We could store gas again, buy it cheap then generate electricity from it. The UK signed a huge LNG deal with the US recently, so it would make sense in a way.

      Could stop using gas, but we’d have to find a new base load provider.

      The UK has a habit of not looking before it leaps, and it’s us that pays.

    16. sirMarcy on

      ITT: lefties doing Olympic level mental gymnastics to not acknowledge it’s due to net zero 

    20. Kaiserhawk on

      I kind of get really pissed off when SNP say stuff like “We generate so much renewable energy we can power two scotlands” meanwhile my energy bills say otherwise.

    21. mrwalrus901 on

      Because you are called a communist/socialist if you want to decouple from the power that corporations have over the working class.

    22. i_like_pigmy_goats on

      Commodity prices have not really increased in the last 20 years so since the Pool was removed and NETA started. Including inflation, I suspect they are actually a net fall, I was hedging gas and power back in 2005 at similar prices to today. The primary reason for higher energy bills is around one third of the bill being used to pay for government policies such as the Renewables Obligation, CfD, Capacity Market etc.

      If these costs were put into general taxation, then bills would fall overnight. This is something a lot of energy suppliers have been asking for for years, but successive governments have ignored it.

    23. Cholas71 on

      Green levies and pegging price to gas. The government has the power to change both, but successive left/right parties have chosen not to.

    25. Aeceus on

      We have seen this since covid and nothing has been done about it. It’s one of the major things holding this economy back

    26. SinisterPixel on

      Marginal pricing was one of the nastiest Thatcher policies ever brought in, and while focusing our efforts on green energy will in the long run make energy cheaper, we need to abolish wholesale energy being priced based on the most expensive source of energy on the grid, even if it makes up proportionally next to nothing.

      It’s low hanging fruit that would make an immediate and noticable difference to all UK households, and would pretty much guarantee the party that enacts it have a HUGE backing during the next general election. Which begs the question, why haven’t we implemented it yet?

    28. LatelyPode on

      – Tories thought not investing a lot of money while we had probably the lowest borrowing costs we’ll see for a long time was a good idea
      – The wholesale cost of energy is set to the highest priced source, which is usually gas. It means that if 99% of energy is produced by cheap wind and 1% expensive gas, then we’ll be paying for 100% gas
      – No zonal pricing structure, meaning grid operators pay generators to turn on, regardless of where they are, realise that they need more energy in the south rather than the north, pay to turn on more generators in the south and then pay to turn off the generators in the north.
      – Yes, we are paying to turn off wind generators in Scotland because of how broken it is
      – Not enough pylons to transfer all that cheap renewable energy in Scotland all the way to southern England, where it is needed more

    29. ExtensionGuilty8084 on

      It’s quite simple; the ownership of electricity in France is public owned. UK is private.

      The same for water, trains, everything. This was highlighted by JC.