Wind power has cut £104bn from UK energy costs since 2010, study finds
Reduction comes from energy generated from windfarms and lower cost of gas owing to lower demand
Wind power has cut at least £104bn from energy costs in the UK since 2010, a study has found.
Users of gas have been among the biggest beneficiaries, the research suggested.
Research by University College London found that from 2010 to 2023, energy from windfarms resulted in electricity bills being lower by about £14.2bn than they would have been if gas had been needed to generate the same amount of power.
However, the reduction in the cost of gas that could be attributed to wind generation – owing to the cut in demand and not needing to build new infrastructure – was much greater, at about £133.3bn.
Over the same period, consumers paid about £43.2bn in green subsidies, levied on electricity bills rather than gas bills. The net result was a reduction of £104.3bn in UK energy bills over the 13-year period, according to the researchers.
Surging
renewable energy generation across Europe made demand for gas – and thus gas prices – lower than they would otherwise have been, and meant electricity companies had less need to build costly new gas-fired power stations, according to the analysis. The way that the UK’s energy market works also means gas-fired power stations are in effect allowed to set the price of electricity.
The analysis applied to 2010-23, leaving out the
lingering impacts of the leap in gas prices in early 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine.
Colm O’Shea, a former hedge fund manager, now a master’s student at UCL and lead author of the report, said: “Far from being a financial burden, this study demonstrates how wind generation has consistently delivered substantial financial benefits to the UK. To put it into context, this net benefit of £104bn is larger than the additional £90bn the UK has spent on gas since 2021 as a result of rising prices related to the war in Ukraine.
“This study demonstrates why we should reframe our understanding of green investment from costly environmental subsidy to a high-return national investment.”
Mark Maslin, a professor of Earth system science at UCL, said the UK’s consumers would benefit to a greater extent if the electricity market were reformed to reflect the reality that wind generation was reducing bills. “At some stage, the UK government must decouple gas and electricity prices,” he said. “That would mean gas prices would reflect the global markets, while the electricity price would reflect the savings from wind and solar.”
Ana Musat, the director of policy at RenewableUK, the trade body for the wind sector, said: “This research highlights the long-term economic benefits for UK plc of investing in renewable energy generation. The only way to reduce energy costs for good is to minimise our exposure to volatile global fossil fuel prices and increase the share of electricity generation from clean homegrown sources.”
