Graphic: The increase in energy bills – and how the rise might be steeper without efficiency measures

By Left Foot Forward | Published: December 13, 2012

A new report (pdf) today from the Committee on Climate Change on energy prices and bills of the impacts of meeting carbon budgets reveals the majority (83%) of the increase in energy bills is from wholesale and supplier costs, with less than a fifth (19%) due to low-carbon policies, including 11% from energy efficiency measures “without which bills could have increased further over this period”.

See Fig. 2.3:

Change-in-average-residential-energy-bill
The report notes:

The overall picture is therefore similar to last year (Figure 2.3). Annual energy bills increased from £610 per household in 2004 to £970 in 2011.

Of this £360 increase (60%, compared to general inflation of 22% over the same period), the majority is unrelated to low-carbon policy:

• Around £290 was due to a combination of wholesale and supplier costs (£300), increasing transmission and distribution costs (£80), the Warm Home Discount (£10) and VAT (£20), offset by reduced energy consumption (-£120);

• Around £70 was due to low-carbon policy costs. Within this it is important to distinguish between the £30 cost increase towards decarbonising the energy mix through support for investments in low-carbon power generation including renewables, and the £40 cost increase for funding of energy efficiency measures, without which bills could have increased further over this period.

See also:

• Graph: UK energy consumption by sector – November 29th, 2012

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  • Newsbot9

    Absolute and total nonsense.

    Some of the supplier costs are due to your agenda (which isn’t low-carbon, since that includes nuclear – it’s high cost energy), Most of the increased transmission cost is likewise. And you can’t directly offset reduced consumption selectively as you have, Trying to claim that expensive electricity lowers costs is an oxymoron.

    Never mind, as well, that much of the “savings” in consumption is coming from “voluntary” disconnections and “unusued” meters in occupied houses now. But you ignore those, as a benefit.

  • http://twitter.com/wj557 wj

    Well Newsbot9, just think of all those saved lives on sinking islands.

    There is a price to pay for saving the planet – I just wish the uncaring bankers and the politicians who nurture them (left and right) would take some of the hit.

    It has become quite noticeable that the people who speak the loudest on Global Warming are the ones who feel it necessary to fly around the world on planes.

  • Newsbot9

    Try actually replying to me. And no, people who actually care are generally pro-nuclear, including many of the founders of organisations like Greenpeace, who have since left them…

    Trying to limit air traffic isn’t happening. Design better plane engines, develop geoengineering, go nuclear. Trying to go back to a world which never existed and which can’t support the population is a non-starter.