A new report has called on the government and officials to be honest with the British public about how much the project willl cost.
Ed Miliband has been blasted by the new report (Image: Getty)
Britons will be clobbered with a £9 trillion bill for Ed Miliband’s Net Zero project, as a new report exposes the “fantasy” costings of the government. A new paper from the Institute of Economic Affairs accuses public officials of consistently and deliberately underestimating the cost of renewables, heat pumps and electric vehicles.
The true sum, voters are warned, could end up being significantly greater than even the highest official predictions. Energy analysts and author of the research David Turver said that the current claims about the cost of Ed Miliband’s project risks shutting down “serious debate about net zero”. The findings of the shocking new research were backed by the Conservative shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho, who described it as “beggars belief” that the true cost of net zero is not being admitted by those in power.
Ed Miliband’s project could cost over £9 trillion by 2050 (Image: Getty)
The top Tory blasted: “Wildly optimistic assumptions and crippling groupthink in our institutions means we’re flying blind – and the result is the highest electricity prices in the world and our industry fleeing overseas.
“When I was Energy Secretary I had to pull teeth to make the Energy Department carry out an accurate costing of wind and solar – one which factors in all the extra costs of building the grid, paying wind farms to switch off when it’s too windy, and paying for gas backup for when it’s not windy enough.
“Ed Miliband has since cancelled that work, which tells you all you need to know about how little this Government cares about the cost of net zero.”
Forecasts about the true cost of net zero by 2050, the current government target, vary widely.
The Climate Change Committee, the official quango set up in 2008 to advise the government on emissions, currently claims net zero will cost just £108 billion, significantly lower than its original estimation of over £1 trillion.
By contrast forecasts by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) pegs the cost at an eye-watering £7.6 trillion.
However the Institute of Economic Affairs has claimed even this is a significant underestimation of the real costs set to be shouldered by British taxpayers and future generations.
Claire Coutinho said it is ‘beggars belief’ that the public doesn’t know the true cost (Image: Getty)
The new paper, The Cost of net zero, says that NESO’s outlier figure fails to include the carbon costs of emissions, which would take the total sum by 2050 to over £9 trillion.
The CCC’s forecasts are also criticised for being overly optimistic with other crucial aspects of the UK’s green transition, such as offshore wind, solar power plants and solar energy, as well as basing estimations on “implausibly low borrowing costs”.
These include assumptions by NESO that the cost of capital for solar and onshore wind projects will be 5% and 5.2% respectively, below the current 30-year gilt yield rate of 5.3%.
Mr Turver warned that public bodies must be “more transparent and frankly more honest” with the British public about the cost of net zero.
He warned: “The various public bodies responsible for working out the costs of net zero have not been entirely truthful in their analysis.
“They have made fantasy assumptions about the cost of renewables and low-carbon technologies. The true cost of net zero is much higher than we have been led to believe.
“If we are to have a serious debate about net zero, the various public bodies need to be more transparent and frankly more honest.”
Reform UK’s Richard Tice, who has led the party’s opposition to ‘Net Stupid Zero’, added: “This shocking report on the Cost of net zero exposes the myths and lies we have been told by various public bodies.
“It shows the real cost of net zero will be many trillions of £s, and will not reduce the cost of energy.
“Instead it will devastate industry as high energy costs make businesses uncompetitive. Reform will scrap Net Stupid Zero to bring down bills and save what’s left of British industry.”
Richard Tice said that only by scrapping Net Zero can industry in Britain be saved (Image: Getty)
Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch made opposition to net zero by 2050 a key part of her leadership platform in March last year, branding it “impossible”.
Calling time on the Tories’ support for the idealistic project, Ms Badenoch said that the law passed by previous PM Theresa May will lead to a “serious drop in our living standards” or bankrupt the Treasury.
She has since pledged to repeal the “failed” 2008 Climate Change Act, which first set legally binding targets to achieve the end of net emissions by 2050.
Defending the existing 2050 target, however, Jess Ralston of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit insisted that the cost of inaction would be equally expensive.
She hit back: “Nobody has a crystal ball on costs of fossil fuels, but history tells us that oil and gas prices are volatile and at the mercy of actors like Putin. The recent gas crisis drove the UK to spend over £180billion, Treasury and homeowners alike would struggle to afford a repeat in the event of a future conflict or price spikes.
“Accelerating the roll out of British renewables and net zero technologies like heat pumps means greater energy security with every turn of a wind turbine and heat pump installed the UK is less reliant on foreign energy imports. Renewables that we already have on the system lowered wholesale power prices by around a quarter in 2024, a trend which will continue as more renewables reduce the amount of time we have gas setting the price.”
A spokesman for Mr Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “We reject this analysis, which assumes there are no costs associated with staying on the fossil fuel rollercoaster.
“NESO has made clear that driving for clean energy saves money by fundamentally reducing our exposure to fossil fuel markets – its report shows we could save £36 billion annually if we hit our 2050 goals compared with a scenario in which we slow down.
“The only way to bring down energy bills and deliver energy security is by making Britain a clean energy superpower, which will get us onto clean, homegrown power that we control.”
