It’s good news and a surprise to some that, in the first half of the year, the USA has added 12 gigawatts of solar power and 4.2 gigawatts of battery storage to the grid.

Economics is now driving the transition to clean energy even in the USA, despite its plentiful fossil fuel reserves.

This compares very favourably with less than half a gigawatt of new gas generation in the same period.

The planned additions by the end of the year are even more striking, with 59 gigawatts of new clean energy in the pipeline.

For us, the North Sea is running out of gas.

Given that the cost of renewable technologies has dropped substantially, we should support Labour’s plans to extend our renewable energy supply.

Ofgem’s recent announcement of a 10 per cent increase in the energy price cap is a direct result of the higher cost of gas.

It would have been much worse if we didn’t have solar and wind energy which are now delivering significantly more of our electricity than fossil fuels.

Octopus Energy, our largest electricity supplier, agrees with Ofgem: to reduce our energy bills, we need to use less gas by reducing waste and expanding renewables.

To get the full benefit, we also need to reform the way electricity is priced by breaking the current link to the cost of gas.

It no longer makes sense now that wind and solar energy are delivering so much.

Cheaper electricity would also encourage people to move to heat pumps, further reducing our need to import expensive shipments of gas.

Colin Jones
via email