Too cheap to meter

The Current State of British Energy

• 1.7 million UK homes did not turn their heating on at all last winter, nearly double from the previous year
• Cold homes cause roughly 4,950 excess deaths yearly, accounting for over 20% of all winter-related deaths
• UK electricity generation fell by 2.6% in 2024 to 285 TWh, the lowest since 1983
• Growing electricity demand is now filled by record imports, up 40% to 33.4 TWh
• Per person electricity generation has dropped over 20% since 2005
• UK electricity use per person is closer to Brazil and South Africa than to Germany, China, Japan, Sweden, or Canada
• Nuclear power supplies just 12.5% of Britain's electricity, while France gets 70% from nuclear and exports 10% of its production
• French state-owned EDF controls Britain's remaining nuclear plants, meaning UK bill-payers subsidise French consumers
• Britain built its last nuclear plant in 1987-1995, while China now operates meltdown-proof reactors
• Hinkley Point C costs 4-6 times more per megawatt than South Korean nuclear plants
• Today's Grid Upgrade moves at half the pace of the 1950s Supergrid and just 20% of the original National Grid's speed
• Gas prices dictate wholesale electricity prices 97% of the time, leaving the UK exposed to global price shocks
• Renewable subsidies exceed £10 billion yearly, with billions more in transmission and balancing costs
• UK manufacturers pay 18.4 pence per kilowatt-hour for electricity, 34% more than in France (13.7p)

Introduction: The Failed Promise of Abundant Energy

In 1954, Lewis Strauss promised "our children would enjoy electrical energy too cheap to meter." Seven decades later, Britain faces a very different reality.

Britain's electricity generation has fallen to its lowest level since 1983. We're now importing record amounts of electricity, up 40% to 33.4 TWh in 2024 from the year prior. Britain now generates over 20% less electricity per person than in 2005. Our electricity use per person (4.5 MWh) is closer to Brazil (3.43 MWh) and South Africa (3.67 MWh) than to developed economies like Germany (5.98 MWh), China (6.64 MWh), Japan (8.15 MWh), Sweden (13.03 MWh), or Canada (15.41 MWh).

Our energy efficiency improvements of 1.6% annually since 2000 haven't offset this decline. We are more energy-poor than we were 20 years ago. This shortage has created some of Europe's highest electricity prices, with our industries paying 34% more than those in France.

The Human Cost of Energy Poverty

1.7 million UK homes went without heating during winter 2024 – nearly double from the previous year and more people than Birmingham's entire population.

Cold homes directly cause 4,950 excess winter deaths yearly, accounting for over 20% of all excess winter deaths. Thousands more suffer preventable illnesses in cold, damp homes, costing the NHS at least £2.5 billion annually.

Elderly people restrict themselves to a single heated room. Families choose between heating and eating. These are the direct consequences of policies that do not prioritise lower unit costs of energy.

The Growth Era:

Britain has a long list of firsts and achievements in energy:

• 1917: Rutherford's discovery of the proton
• 1926: First to build a national electricity grid
• 1956: First to build a commercial nuclear power plant supplying a national grid
• 1955: Built the 'Supergrid' transforming the country's energy system
• 1967: Reached peak electricity infrastructure spending of £5.9 billion (today's money)
• 1965: Had 21 nuclear reactors by 1965 compared to only 19 in the rest of the world combined
• 1947: Created the Central Electricity Board

Decline

Britain's nuclear power now provides just 12.5% of our electricity – half its peak share. Had we maintained our 1956-1998 nuclear rollout pace, nuclear would produce around 150 TWh annually (50% of our total generation).

In the same period, France built enough nuclear to generate 70% of its electricity and export 10% of its total production. With emissions just one-fifth of Britain's and 35% lower electricity costs, France gained tremendous advantage. French state-owned EDF now controls Britain's remaining nuclear fleet, meaning UK bill-payers effectively subsidise French consumers through higher domestic bills.

While Britain struggles, other nations rapidly expand:

• The US will double electricity production capacity from 1 to 2 terawatts by 2040
• China will grow from 3 to 8 terawatts

Veto

The inefficiency of centralised planning applies to all large infrastructure projects. One of the worst examples is the Lower Thames Crossing, with 359,000 pages of planning and hundreds of millions in costs, more than twice what Norway spent to actually build the world's longest road tunnel.

There is good work being done in Planning and Infrastructure Bill, which will fast-track critical infrastructure by simplifying the approval process.

Supply Chain

The original National Grid used almost exclusively British-made components, giving the CEB greater control over design and costs. Today, we depend heavily on imports.

Today's Great Grid Upgrade will proceed at half the pace of the 1950s Supergrid and only 20% of the original National Grid's speed – a clear measure of our diminished capability.

The Global Emissions Challenge

51bn tonnes of greenhouse gases are emitted every year.

Gaia (earth) does not care which country emits them.

source: https://app.electricitymaps.com

The UK needs to separate the challenge of delivering low cost energy from achieving net carbon zero emissions. Our current approach overemphasises domestic carbon intensity reductions at excessive cost, which is now delivering smaller marginal results compared to if this money was invested in R&D (i.e lowering the cost of energy storage) or if the government were to invest it abroad.

Methane leaks from just two gas wells in Turkmenistan caused more global heating in 2022 than the entire carbon emissions of the UK. Investing in detection and prevention technologies offers dramatically higher returns than many domestic projects, especially compared to limiting North Sea gas extraction when global demand remains unchanged and solving the reduction in demand remains unsolved.

The UK's manufacturing industry creates significantly fewer emissions than Chinese counterparts across industries. For steel, UK production generates 1.6 tons of CO2 per ton versus China's 2.1 tons (31% more), displacing 0.5 tons of emissions for each ton produced domestically. The difference is even more dramatic with aluminium, where UK industry emits 4 tons of CO2 per ton compared to China's 12.7 tons (over 3 times higher), resulting in substantial global emissions savings when production remains in Britain.

Evaluating Energy Projects by True Cost

Every UK energy project should be evaluated based on what it costs to deliver 1 MWh of electricity when needed. The Value-Adjusted Levelised Cost of Electricity (VALCOE) provides this assessment by accounting for:

• The time-value of electricity (peak demand power is worth more than off-peak)
• System integration costs (particularly important for intermittent renewables)
• Reliability premium (valuing dispatchable sources that generate on command)
• Grid services (like frequency regulation and voltage support)
• Location-specific value (accounting for transmission constraints and regional demand)

Wind power might show competitive cost figures but poor value if its generation doesn't align with peak demand periods. Conversely, nuclear and solar-plus-storage solutions often demonstrate superior VALCOE.

The Limitations of Wind Power

Britain has made significant investments in offshore wind, which has contributed to our renewable energy mix, but faces ongoing challenges:

• While wind provides valuable zero-carbon electricity, offshore wind load factors decreased to 36.3% in 2024 – the lowest since 2016
• Prices are growing faster than inflation and are high at £80/MWh+.
• Newer technologies like floating offshore wind currently cost around £176/MWh, several times the potential cost of utility-scale solar + batteries.

The Hydrogen Backbone Disaster

The proposed "hydrogen backbone" represents possibly the worst misallocation of energy infrastructure funding:

• Will cost 25 TIMES more per kilometre than the original National Transmission System for gas (£9.8 million vs. £0.4 million)
• Will be built at less than half the speed (145.8 km vs. 337.6 km yearly)
• Requires substantially more compression infrastructure due to hydrogen's properties

This massive investment delivers questionable returns while diverting resources from proven technologies.

The Carbon Capture and Storage Misallocation

The UK has committed £20 billion to carbon capture and storage (CCS):

• Adds £18-71 per tonne of CO₂ avoided while requiring more energy per unit of output
• Costs £80-100/MWh for gas-with-CCS compared to just £40-60/MWh for utility-scale solar in the UK
• Takes 5+ years to build versus 12-18 months for solar farms
• Remains largely unproven at scale

Instead of continuing down this costly path, we should consider more efficient alternatives.

The Solar Solution

Solar offers clear advantages:

Lower Cost

• Optimised solar costs could reach £30-40/MWh without planning issues and grid constraints
• This is well below offshore wind's £80/MWh
• Capital costs are £600-800/kW versus wind's £2,000-3,000/kW

Rapid Deployment

• Solar farms can be built in 6-12 months, compared to 3-5 years for offshore wind
• This means faster relief for energy-starved homes and businesses

Modularity

• Solar works at any scale, from rooftops to utility farms
• This flexibility enables generation closer to demand, reducing transmission costs and losses

Land Efficiency

• Meeting UK's 266 TWh of electricity demand would require about 320 GW of solar capacity
• This would use roughly 3,885 km² – just 1.6% of UK land area
• Much could be accommodated on south-facing roofs, over car parks, and solar parks

Battery storage, now at 4.6 GWh, can grow as costs fall, smoothing intermittency and enabling viable solar-plus-storage. This approach could immediately start reducing energy costs and saving thousands of lives lost yearly to cold homes.

Nuclear: Reclaiming Leadership

Britain was the first nuclear pioneer and can be again.

South Korea has shown that nuclear power can be built affordably:

• South Korean reactors cost 4-6 times less per megawatt than Hinkley Point C
• KEPCO now builds reactors in Czechia at less than half Hinkley's cost per energy unit

China has built and operated a 200 MW meltdown-proof reactor since 2022, using self-cooling technology that the US and Britain pioneered.

The Cost Crisis and Industrial Impact

The UK should prioritise affordability for British consumers and businesses. Average energy prices for businesses have tripled in the UK between 2004 and 2024 relative to other prices (inflation minus the effect of energy on inflation). They have doubled in the last five years and are now five times higher than in the United States. Focusing on costs would help reduce the UK's de-industrialisation, which has lost half of manufacturing in the last 30 years.

High energy costs and efforts to decarbonise heavy industry have added to long-term financial pressures, leading British Steel to report daily losses of more than £700,000.

Department of Low-Cost Energy

A department focused on low-cost energy as the priority and would make investments that maximise emissions reduction per pound spent regardless where the emissions are reduced.

78% of the British public support solar expansion, policy should reflect this consensus through six specific changes:

1. Shift funding priorities: Redirect most of the £20 billion earmarked for CCS toward solar deployment and increasing grid connections, providing immediate bill relief.
2. Reform planning laws: Address the 10-15 year delays solar and nuclear face by streamlining approval processes.
3. Implement zonal pricing: Reform electricity markets to reflect the actual cost of supplying power to different regions, incentivising generation where most needed.
4. Ensure EV manufacturers and consumers are rewarded for vehicle-to-grid.
5. Remove the Climate Change Levy on electricity: This would provide immediate business relief, especially in energy-intensive sectors. Taxing electricity at the same rate as gas contradicts decarbonisation goals.
6. Create a solar rooftop mandate: Require all new buildings and major renovations to include solar, creating a distributed generation network that reduces transmission costs.

The Federation of Small Businesses found that every £1 reduction in fixed costs typically generates £2.80 in additional economic activity.

Conclusion: The Path Back to Abundance

Britain's industrial rise was built on abundant energy – first coal, then electricity. Our current economic challenges directly link to our failure to maintain this advantage.

Energy revolutions can happen rapidly with the right policies:

• The original National Grid was built in just 7 years
• The 'Supergrid' transformed our energy system in 15 years
• South Korea built its nuclear fleet in under 30 years

Affordable energy is basic human dignity. Everyone should have access to heating. No elderly person should die from cold in one of the world's wealthiest nations.

The vision of electricity "too cheap to meter" is possible. By embracing solar, nuclear, gas and storage, we can build an energy system fit for the 21st century.