Paying the price for net zero

Let’s remember, during the election campaign, Miliband promised to cut bills by £300 and create 650,000 jobs through Great British Energy.

Yet, now we have Sir Tony Blair’s think tank stating that the Energy Secretary's claim that net zero will create hundreds of thousands of jobs is vastly overstated. The think tank added that green manufacturing would likely employ just 350,000 people by the middle of the century which is half the number who currently work in “grey” industries, such as oil and gas or carbon-intensive manufacturing.

Ed Miliband insists that a clean power system by 2030 will lower bills by reducing reliance on gas-fired power. On Tuesday, it was forecasted that the energy price cap was on course to rise by £85 in April, taking a typical household’s bill to the equivalent of £1,823 per year. Another forecast by Government officials has put the coming increase at closer to £100.

British businesses already face electricity costs more than twice as high as the rest of Europe, and almost five times those in America.

Also, this week there have been reports in the media regarding a potential energy market shake-up through zonal pricing, a system where different regions of the country would have their own electricity prices based on local supply and demand.

Currently, the whole of the UK has one national electricity price.

Advocates of a zonal system argue that it would incentivise developers to build wind and solar farms nearer to centres of demand.

Critics say zonal pricing doesn’t address the problem that large-scale wind and solar farms can’t be built in urban centres and it would create risks for developers.

Scotland has the highest energy prices in Europe and in the Borders there is already lots of renewables generation. What do you think about zonal pricing?