Since the Energy Market Reform White paper in 2011, the UK government has argued that the transition to renewable energy, through cheaper wind and solar power, will cut energy costs and secure the nation’s energy supply.
As energy bills just rose 4% for millions of customers, and are forecasted to explode by more than 20% in January 2027, high prices are the new normal.
Is it any wonder then that so many people are sceptical about the impact the transition from oil and gas will have on energy bills?
As energy professionals, it is vital that we understand why people are angry and cynical, and why they are critical of the benefits of Net Zero.
Frustration about bills is legitimate. People were promised that solar power and wind would bring lower bills, and yet their outgoings to energy suppliers tell a different story. If we respond with technical defensiveness, we will lose the argument. If we respond with clarity, maybe we can win it.
So to clarify: Renewables are not the reason bills are high. Gas is.
Progress on UK renewables is real and brings real benefits.
The UK has made substantial progress towards its Net Zero commitment.
Renewables provided 53.1% of UK electricity generation in the first quarter of 2026, and a record 55.8% in the second quarter. A decade ago, that figure would have sounded implausible. We now have a grid in which more than half of the electricity flowing to homes and businesses comes from wind, solar, hydro and biomass.
Alongside this, electrification is accelerating. Heat pumps, electric vehicles and battery storage are moving from early adopter curiosities to mainstream infrastructure. The direction of travel is clear, and the capacity is being built.
So why has the transition not translated into lower bills?
Global energy pricing model
Prices are set for wholesale electricity markets in OECD countries by applying a marginal pricing model. Every generator that is needed to meet demand in a given period is paid the price of the most expensive unit required to meet that demand. Most of the time, that marginal generator is a gas-fired power station. Effectively, the price of cheap renewable electricity is overruled by the price of expensive oil and gas due to global political and social volatility.
Consider what this means in practice. A wind farm may generate electricity at a fraction of the cost of a gas plant. When gas is needed to balance supply and demand, the wholesale price reflects the gas plant’s increased fuel costs, and that price is applied across the board. The wind farm’s low cost of generation does not reach the customer.
This is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of the debate. The core determinant of high UK electricity prices is gas, not renewable energy.
When gas prices spike, as they did after 2022 and now, with the crisis in the Middle East, electricity prices follow, regardless of how much wind and solar power is being generated across the country.
Renewables are not causing the increase. In fact, research from University College London concluded that the uptake in renewable energy sources in the period 2010-2023 reduced UK energy costs by £104 billion, and that was after taking into consideration the £43 billion paid in green subsidies on electricity bills.
Why is the big picture so hard to see?
Very few people outside our sector understand marginal pricing. Why would they? It is a complex feature of a wholesale market that doesn’t interest most consumers. They see a bill that is higher than it was five years ago. They have also been told, repeatedly, that more renewables will bring their energy costs down. Is it any wonder that people are cynical?
This complexity and consequent gap in understanding creates an opening that is being exploited by those with vested interests in preserving the current fossil fuel driven system. They will have investments in oil and gas making them huge profits at everyone else’s expense arising from the destructive and costly impacts of climate change.
A false narrative that new renewable capacity has pushed prices up has taken hold in parts of the political debate to exploit this knowledge gap. Their simple story, funded by people making a fortune investing in highly profitable fossil fuels, is like a fairy tale, easy to communicate and digest, making more impact than the more complex and real story.
Renewables are the cheapest form of new energy
Fact is the economics of the energy transition are not in serious dispute.
Government and independent analyses consistently show that new onshore wind, offshore wind and solar are the cheapest forms of new electricity generation in the UK. They cost less to build and run than new gas generation, and they carry none of the fuel price risk.
That last point deserves emphasis. Gas is a globally traded commodity. Its price is set by international demand, geopolitics, and supply disruption, none of which the UK controls. Every unit of gas we burn exposes us to that volatility. Sunshine and wind, by contrast, have no external cost and no rogue supplier who can raise the price.
The wholesale market has not yet fully passed that advantage onto consumers. The way to fix that is to build more renewables, more storage and more flexibility, until less gas is needed to set the price. Investment in a clean energy economy, without expensive nuclear power, is the way to sustain low energy prices.
Real world examples consistently prove that renewables drive down energy costs
Arguments about markets can feel abstract. Data-driven results do not.
At BHESCo, we have funded and delivered around 70 community energy projects across Sussex, carefully observing what happens when organisations generate their own clean electricity rather than relying entirely on the grid.
Take Saltdean Primary School. Solar panels funded by our community investors were installed on the school’s roof in 2019.
In the years 2019 to 2025, the panels saved the school an impressive £74,000 on energy costs. That is money that stayed in the school’s budget, spent on the things that really matter like staffing and resources.
This is not a modelled forecast or a best-case scenario. It is six years of real savings, achieved through a project that was financed by the community and is owned by members of BHESCo, all delivered without any expense to the school.
It is one example among many, and it shows the community energy business model in action: when you generate your own power from a source with no fuel cost, you are insulated from the pricing logic that is hurting everyone else.
Time for business and facilities managers to face reality: Prices are not coming down soon
If you are responsible for a business’s energy costs, you cannot afford to be unrealistically optimistic.
If you are hoping that energy bills will fall back to where they once were, and are waiting for that to happen before you act, you are likely to be disappointed.
Forecasters from the energy supplier EDF have stated that they expect prices to remain stubbornly high for the rest of the decade.
Global demand for energy remains tight. The pool of accessible fossil fuels is shrinking, and the cost of extracting what remains is rising. Basic economics of supply and demand are that scarcity of product increases its price. Businesses that remain fully exposed to wholesale gas-linked electricity pricing are, in effect, placing a long-term bet on a commodity that is increasingly more expensive, harder to process and riskier to distribute.
Waiting is not a neutral choice. It is a decision to stay exposed.
The alternative is to take control of a portion of your energy supply. On-site solar, battery storage and, where economically attractive over the long term, heat pumps allow a business to generate and manage its own power, reducing its dependence on the grid and the gas price that drives it. For many organisations, the barrier has been the upfront capital. That is where BHESCo’s innovative Power Purchase Agreement offers help.
Under a BHESCo Power Purchase Agreement, we fund, install and maintain solar generation on your site at no upfront cost. You then buy the electricity it produces at an agreed rate, at a lower price than what you pay your supplier, and with far greater price certainty. You gain cost savings and stability without tying up capital, and your site begins contributing to a cleaner grid.
Because BHESCo is a co-operative, and because our funding comes from social impact investors, our incentive is aligned with yours: to design the system that genuinely serves your site over the long term.
Winning back trust
Scepticism about the energy transition is not going to be solved by better slogans. It will be solved by being honest about what is happening and by delivering tangible results.
We need to explain, plainly and repeatedly, that gas sets the price. We need to challenge the false narrative that renewables are to blame, and to be transparent about who benefits when that narrative spreads. And we need to keep demonstrating, project by project, that clean energy generated close to where it is used delivers significant, meaningful savings.
The public was told that renewables would bring down costs. That promise can be kept, but only if we finish the job, and only if we stop letting the most expensive fuel on the system dictate what everyone pays.
Be proactive and determine your own energy future.
If you manage a business, a site or a portfolio and are concerned about long-term energy costs, now is the time to understand your options. Visit the BHESCo website to find out how a Power Purchase Agreement, solar PV, battery storage or heat pumps could reduce your exposure to rising prices, and to start a conversation with our team.
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