Comment: Footing the government’s Energy Bill

Renewable energy is something that the world desperately needs. Continuing breakdowns in nature, holes in the ozone layer, increases in health risks such as skin cancer and the ever-looming threat of total and complete resource consumption has kept the world in a grip of fear for decades.

So does it now come as a surprise that when scientists, energy companies and the government have finally found a potential solution that we, the public, would be the ones footing the bill?

The government is expected to formally announce plans in the coming weeks with regards to how much energy companies can charge for year on year bills. Today it released further details pertaining to its Energy Bill, introducing changes designed to reduce emissions and meet renewable energy targets.

However, as the public has come to expect, the average cost will once again rise to cover these changes.

Currently, household and business energy bills nationally cost an estimated £2.56 billion. Under the proposed regime, this will rise to around £10 billion by the end of the decade – more than tripling our energy bills in the process.

David Cameron and the Conservatives have been hesitant about this bill and the effects it would have on the public, but they have reached a truce with the Lib Dems to put it into action.

The results of the increase in cost would allow the government and energy companies to build further wind farms and extend their reach with solar panels, which would aid greatly the government’s initiative to have a usable level of renewable energy by 2030.

It is also noteworthy that this initiative would bring about an estimated 250,000 jobs for Brits.

Instigating such a dramatic overhaul on our energy infrastructure was never going to be cheap, but in this instance, given the critical juncture the world is in with regards to the astronomical levels of carbon emissions, could for once the cost be worth the investment?

Ali Kirkby