Renewables bring down wholesale cost of energy

A new report claims that renewables are cutting the wholesale price of energy and lessening the impact of subsidies on bill payers.

The study, published by Good Energy and backed by the University of Sheffield, claims that wind and solar brought down the wholesale cost of electricity by £1.55 billion in 2014 – meaning that an overall net cost for supporting the two renewable sources last year was £1.1 billion, 58% less than the cost reflected in the capped budget set for green subsidies, known as the Levy Control Framework.

Good Energy chief executive, Juliet Davenport, comments: “This analysis puts the bill payer at the centre of the debate around renewable energy subsidies. Let’s give them the full picture and not just half of it.”

Experts from the University of Sheffield have backed the report and are about to publish the results of their own study on the savings onshore and offshore are contributing to wholesale energy costs.

Dr Lisa Clark, from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Sheffield, says: “Decarbonising electricity generation is critical for the future sustainability of the planet. In the UK wind is a really important source of renewable electricity. At the moment the costs of renewable subsidy schemes such as Feed-in Tariff and Renewable Obligation have cast doubt over future of renewables. But there are very few reports of the actual financial savings from renewable generation like wind and existing savings to consumers. However, this report provides clear evidence that UK wind generation is typically saving UK consumers around £1.5 billion per year.”