Reducing the price of electricity for consumers  

Currently the way our electricity market operates and how the pricing stricture works is very complex, which has led to the UK having some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. There is an urgent need to reform the electricity pricing structure, with the aim of reducing costs for consumers, while still providing enough profit to support investment and growth in the renewables sector. 

Around 17% of an electricity bill consists of a range of environmental and social levies designed to support the growth of renewables in the UK. The Government is considering removing these levies from electricity prices, which could make electricity substantially cheaper, and ensure heat pumps are always cheaper to run than a gas boiler. We believe the best and fairest way to do this is to move environmental and social tariffs into general taxation, which would help to reduce fuel poverty. 

There is an urgent need to make sure these reforms go ahead and are both thorough and rapid, so we can reduce fuel poverty and accelerate the shift to low carbon heating.

Making electricity less expensive will also boost government efforts to install heat pumps as their preferred low-carbon heating option, by reducing the running costs of heat pumps. This will accelerate the shift to low carbon heating and help deliver net zero targets.