Offshore wind provides the bulk of electricity generation under the CfD scheme. Even with today’s elevated gas prices, the reference prices in March 2026 (£77/MWh) were much lower than the current strike prices of projects awarded contracts in AR6 (£88/MWh) and AR7 (£97/MWh). Onshore wind strike prices are slightly lower and those for solar much lower. But these projects produce trivial amounts of electricity compared to offshore wind, so we can expect subsidies to keep rising and bills to go ever higher.
Labour’s announcement that it will scrap the Carbon Price Support mechanism in April 2028 is a welcome, if tardy, intervention that will reduce wholesale electricity prices and hence reference prices. However, this means that CfD-funded generators will simply collect more of their revenue from subsidies rather than the market.
Conclusions
Even with elevated gas prices, CfD subsidies are soaring and the outlook is that Miliband’s AR6 and AR7 auctions are going to send bills even higher. This has not stopped Ember putting out another shonky report that tortures the data to produce the result they want.
It should be obvious, even to them, if subsidies are being paid to renewables then they are more expensive than gas. With this level of desperation from Ember, we really must be witnessing the dying embers of Net Zero propaganda.
To the ‘prepared mind’ nothing contrary to ideology will have any power to change attitudes.
The dying embers have something in common with King Charles II.
The British establishment follows international fashions – but it tends to take them further, and to cling to them longer, than the establishment in other nations do.
Sadly “Net Zero” has become Policy (capital P) – ingrained into the practices of officials and “experts” here. Regardless of costs Net Zero will continue to be followed – with any suffering blamed on “Trump” rather than the policies of the British government.
I wonder what proportion of the general public still believe the climate catastrophe nonsense? By now the polar ice caps were supposed to have vanished and inundated so many areas that millions of people have been displaced. How can so many people not have noticed it hasn’t happened?
The UK Met Office inventing temperature data from non existent weather stations should be a colossal scandal but our legacy media is asleep at the wheel.
Meanwhile I’m protecting my plants from late frosts in April just like my dad did when I was a kid.
@Stonyground
I wonder what proportion of the general public still believe the climate catastrophe nonsense?
My experience? Most, though they are far less vehement about it. It is hard to admit you are wrong about such a huge thing. I think it has floated way down the list of priorities.
And part of this is because the whole thing was part of what the Soviet Union used to call “western decadence”, where we were so wealthy we obsessed about stupid stuff, and often liked to self flagellate to appease our guilt at being wealthy when we didn’t earn it. This is just like the kids or really wealthy people still often do. Now things are tighter — in part caused by this stupid thing — other things take priority.
Meanwhile I’m protecting my plants from late frosts in April just like my dad did when I was a kid.
I’m sure you must know that all bad things arising out of the weather are due to climate change and all good things are the result of “how dumb are you — don’t you know the difference between climate and weather?”
The big tell on this was when they switched from “Global Warming” to “Climate Change.” A brilliant piece of marketing design however mendacious it might have been. It gives them, what shall we say, much more rhetorical flexibility?
“It should be obvious, even to them, if subsidies are being paid to renewables then they are more expensive than gas. With this level of desperation from Ember, we really must be witnessing the dying embers of Net Zero propaganda.”
Sadly I think its going to take a lot more than a few logical inconsistencies to shame the Net Zero crowd into silence.
IMO only one thing might stop them in their tracks – mass blackouts, and large numbers of deaths resulting from them (a hospital losing all power for days on end for example). And even then I think they would try to brazen it out, and might even succeed. These people are playing for keeps, they aren’t going to give up easily, because if they did just give up they might be in line for a prison cell (or worse).
There is this …
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15748055/Shetland-windfarm-owner-paid-10million-year-turn-turbines-gale-force-winds.html
My usual and oft repeated statement that if the wind farms are so efficient and economical, why do they need subsidies? To anyone with more intelligence than slime mould, the answer is obvious but not to our politicians and snivel serpents.
IMO only one thing might stop them in their tracks – mass blackouts, and large numbers of deaths resulting from them (a hospital losing all power for days on end for example).
“See, this proves our argument! We haven’t sacrificed enough to Gaia, we must sacrifice EVEN MORE!!!!!”
The Easter Islanders were saying exactly the same as they chopped down their last tree.
Fraser Orr – yes, if it gets colder, as well as if it gets warmer, they will blame Carbon Dioxide. If it gets dryer they will be blame Carbon Dioxide and if it gets wetter they will also blame Carbon Dioxide.
They know that things always change over time (that the idea of a stable climate is nonsense) – so they a perfect excuse for the totalitarianism (total statism) they wish to impose anyway.
jgh – yes that is how they think, the sincere ones. The others (the ones at the very top) are doing this out of a lust-for-power.