Are rising energy bills the price of net zero?

Ofgem has confirmed another shift in the cost of gas and electricity for millions of homes.

Transcript

00:00The question of whether green energy is too expensive should perhaps be sort of counterbalanced

00:05by can we afford not to go green given of course we've got the problem of global warming.

00:10The energy price cap is set to go up again in January and regulators say several factors

00:15are behind the change.

00:17In Britain we're a kind of peculiar place, we have large reserves of sort of gas and

00:22oil up in the North Sea, although it's expensive to sort of get out, but we are addicted to

00:26gas and gas is used to sort of create electricity, so we are sort of subject to sort of the vagaries

00:31if you like of world markets, that's why sort of prices have gone up.

00:35Household energy costs have been under pressure for several years with events like the Ukraine

00:39war affecting global gas prices.

00:41We had the sort of the, well still have the sort of the conflict in Ukraine which of course

00:46has meant sort of problems, we bought a lot of Russia's gas.

00:51The Chancellor has announced measures to ease bills by cutting the Queen levy, but this approach

00:56comes with its own challenges.

00:58What the sort of government did in the budget is to try and sort of reduce the sort of cost

01:02by taking off the green levy on electricity, but of course what we've now got is a sort

01:08of strange situation where it's going to be sort of cheaper for people on sort of particular

01:14sort of price arrangements and of course the whole sort of dynamics of the energy market

01:19has become problematic in recent years.

01:22electricity and gas still make up the largest proportion of household bills and experts

01:25say action is needed both to bring costs down and to support the transition to greener

01:30energy.

01:31There is no doubt of course that the amount that it costs us to sort of consume gas and

01:35electricity and we're going to continue to use both for the very very foreseeable future

01:38and probably the sort of long term.

01:40It consumes a lot of sort of household income.

01:43We need to do something to make it sort of cheaper and indeed the sort of theory of sort

01:48of greener supplies, you know, coming from sort of the sun and water and whatever else and

01:54perhaps atomic energy is that we could get it a lot cheaper.

01:57But hey, we've got to invest in that because of course that's about the sort of the future

02:01and we can't just sort of turn it on.

02:02Many people want to adopt greener energy solutions at home, but the level of investment required

02:08remains a significant hurdle for households.

02:11In conclusion, people would like the idea of sort of green energy, but of course whether

02:16they're going to be willing to pay more for it and of course doing all the things that

02:20they need to spend in terms of their own houses to make themselves energy efficient,

02:24which is going to cost tens of thousands, that's a big no-no for sort of the vast majority

02:28of people.

02:29Thank you, people.