Some good news for readers heading in to the weekend. From April Fool’s Day, energy bills for most households in Britain will fall by £238 to an average of £1,690 a year, the lowest since Russia invaded Ukraine as the energy price cap is lowered. Still, the price cap is over £1,000 more than it was in 2022, the real impacts on peoples’ wallets will follow what Hunt decides to do in March.

Ofgem cut the price cap by 12% as wholesale gas prices continue to drop, thanks to ample liquefied natural gas imports from America and robust European gas storage levels. Just imagine what the price would be if we tapped into more of our own natural gas…

As we go to pixel Britain is reliant on electric energy to keep us from the chill and currently 45% of that energy is coming from gas, wind is supplying 32%, nuclear 5% and other sources are at the single digit percentage level. One of those sources being the last coal power plant at Ratcliffe-on-Soar, contributing some 3.4% to the nation’s electricity production, marking its busiest week of the year. Britain’s last coal station is scheduled to shut-down in September. Next winter there will be no coal power to fall back on…

This sacrifice by Britain – which has plenty of coal reserves – will make no real difference to global carbon emissions. In fact global power generation hit new highs in 2023. Coal-fired electricity generation increased last year in China, India, the Philippines, Turkey and Vietnam. Greta needs to go East.

If the wind were to be calmed today Britain would simply not have enough energy to meet demand. This will inevitably happen at some point. Building small nuclear reactors to replace coal-powered base demand should be an urgent priority – much more important than building migrant hotels in Rwanda for example. The inability of Britain to get on with industrial and infrastructure projects is pathetic. For example – and not entirely unrelated – Britain will soon be one of the few major advanced industrial economies without a large scale modern electric battery production sector. The demand is there, what is holding Britain back from getting on with building supply?

A fired-up Tom Harwood tilted at Britain’s failure to develop energy infrastructure on Question Time last night. The newly-appointed GB News Deputy Political-Editor – congratulations by the way – tilted at the “plague on all your houses” political failure to build electricity infrastructure. On each means of power generation, from nuclear and new oil, to fracking and solar, Tom generated examples of the anti-growth attitudes of all major political parties. He went on:

“I don’t think there’s a single form of energy production in this country that a politician, or across the board politicians, have supported. We live in a country now where every single politician, every single political party, from each direction, find reasons to say no. To stop development. To stop growth. To stop our own home-grown energy. Frankly, I don’t care if it’s shale gas, if it’s fracking, if it’s wind, if it’s solar, if it’s nuclear, if it’s oil, if it’s gas. I don’t care, just build it!”

Speaking truth to power.

While speaking to LBC this morning, Climate Minister Graham Stuart couldn’t rule out energy rationing. This is despite Liz emphatically doing so in the leadership contest. The change in tune comes as the National Grid warned that 3-hour blackouts could be a possibility from November. Wrap up warm…

During the interview Graham did also proclaim “we’re not a nanny state government” in response to questions about a public information campaign. Liz is sticking to some campaign pledges…

The government’s new energy package is currently set to last six months, pending a review. Although  Jacob Rees Mogg has just admitted in a pool clip that it may extend far beyond that for the public sector if wholesale prices don’t go down soon. We could be in this for the long run…

Ofgem has, as expected, raised the energy price cap from £1,971 to £3,549 a year, starting in October. They ominously add:

“Although Ofgem is not giving price cap projections for January because the market remains too volatile, the market for gas in Winter means that prices could get significantly worse through 2023.”

Ofgem chief Jonathan Brearley says “it’s clear the new Prime Minister will need to act further”.