Q&A: New UK onshore wind and solar is '50% cheaper' than new gas

I don't know about the UK but this whole promise that the renewables are cheaper, at least where I live, has been a huge scam. The more renewables we have, the more expensive the electricity is.

I think the real story is that the renewables are cheaper only if one doesn't factor in energy storage costs and artificially inflate electricity prices from fossil fuel with taxes.

Essentially it's a government-sanctioned theft. The renewable electricity producers are providing a service which no one want nor would normally buy but everyone is forced to buy it and subside it.

In the UK the wholesale price was about £80/MWh in 2025. The retail price was about £270/MWh + a standing charge. If you factor in the standing charge, an average user paid about £344/MWh. So the cost of generation was only about 23% of the retail price. I believe the green levies + CfDs accounted for about another 15% of the retail price.

Does this mean that if generation was free, and there were no green policy costs, our electric would still be expensive?

edit: "Network and Distribution" appears to contribute about 23% of the retail price. I guess green energy increased that cost because wind/solar are more spread out and sometimes off-shore.

Doesn’t gas generators set the market price 98% of the time in the UK?

They need to fix their market pricing mechanism before the public benefit from cheaper renewable energy sources.

If you are wondering why the air quotes around "50% cheaper", it's because the price of electricity is set based on the price of gas. Crazy, right ? https://www.greeniow.org.uk/why-uk-electricity-prices-are-ti...

Now add storage costs

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Gas can produce enormous amounts of power at short notice 100% of the time and is cheaper per watt, nobody builds a 5MW twin cycle gas turbine power plant. There is a reason it sets the price at market. The CFDs are locked in at persistently high prices for decades. All these actions will increase costs to customers.

There is a reason our energy costs are the highest in the world, it is because our politicians persistently make choices like the ones described in this article.