For years, ministers have insisted that the shift to renewable energy would lower bills. The public has been told repeatedly that wind and solar are the “cheapest form of power”, that the transition will save every household hundreds of pounds, and that the only reason bills remain high is because of international gas prices. Last week, that illusion finally collapsed. Not because politicians admitted it; not because industry lobbyists confessed; but because the Office for Budget Responsibility quietly exposed the truth in a footnote that most people will never read.
The OBR revealed that Ed Miliband’s next round of renewable energy subsidies—Allocation Round 7 (AR7)—will add at least £1 billion a year to household energy bills. This staggering cost was not announced by the Chancellor in the Budget. It was not disclosed by DESNZ. It was not explained to Parliament. It was quietly buried in the OBR’s Fiscal Outlook, a document which the Government hoped nobody outside Westminster would scrutinise too closely.
When you spread these costs across the UK’s 28 million households, the £1 billion added by AR7 alone comes to about £36 per household, every single year, locked in for at least a decade and a half. That figure sits on top of the existing £2.3 billion that consumers already pay each year for CfD subsidies—subsidies which the OBR now expects to double to £4.6 billion by 2030. Ministerial claims that renewables are lowering bills are not merely misleading; they are the precise opposite of what is happening.
To the tens of millions of households already struggling with rising energy prices, this revelation should cause outrage. Because the Government not only failed to tell the public what AR7 will cost, they also failed to explain that this £1 billion annual hit is only the first wave of new charges that are about to land on bills. Once you add up the OBR’s figures, the scale becomes undeniable. Between the expansion of Contracts for Difference, the doubling of the capacity market levy, and the new nuclear RAB charge to fund Sizewell C, British households are now facing roughly £261 a year in new Net Zero–related costs, with no clear endpoint.
Then comes the capacity market levy—the quiet mechanism that pays gas and hydro plants to stand by for the many hours when wind and solar fail to meet demand. According to the Treasury, the cost of this levy will rocket from £1.6 billion next year to around £4.6 billion by the end of the decade. That £3 billion increase translates into roughly £107 per household, imposed because a system built around intermittent energy must permanently maintain a parallel fleet of reliable generators that can be switched on at a moment’s notice. The public is paying twice: once for the renewables that cannot meet peak demand, and again for the backup that keeps the lights on when they fail.
Taken together, these measures expose the central deceit at the heart of the Government’s energy strategy: that Net Zero is affordable, and that bills will fall. The figures now show the opposite. Energy companies are guaranteed decades of index-linked revenue streams. The grid operator is guaranteed billions for emergency backup and reinforcement. The Treasury is guaranteed rising tax receipts through VAT as bills climb. And ordinary families are expected to absorb the costs quietly, without complaint, without understanding, and without any democratic choice in the matter.
The shock does not end there. In January, households will begin paying a new nuclear levy to fund the construction of Sizewell C under the “Regulated Asset Base” model. This adds another £1 billion a year onto bills—another £36 per household—long before the nuclear plant produces a single kilowatt-hour of electricity. Support for nuclear is essential for a functioning grid, but funding it through regressive charges on households during a cost-of-living crisis is economic vandalism.
Rachel Reeves has stood at the Despatch Box proclaiming that Labour is “bringing down the cost of living.” Ed Miliband promised a £300 reduction in every household’s energy bill. Yet since July, bills have already risen by £200, winter pressures are rising, and the OBR now confirms that the Government is imposing hundreds of pounds in additional annual charges with years of further increases still to come.
The OBR has done the country a service by exposing what ministers attempted to conceal. But the more important question now is simple: how much longer will the public tolerate an energy policy that impoverishes them? The Government can spin, but the numbers are now on the table. £261 per household, per year, before accounting for upcoming grid upgrade levies, balancing costs, curtailment payments, and the massive reinforcements required for forced electrification. The real bill for Net Zero is only beginning to surface, and it is ordinary families who are being made to pay for it.
This is not an accident. It is the inevitable consequence of an energy system built around political targets rather than engineering reality. A system reliant on vast quantities of intermittent power will always need vast quantities of backup. A system that requires constant grid reinforcement, new substations, new pylons, and new cables will always drive network charges higher. A system that pretends weather-dependent power can replace conventional generation will always force consumers to pay for two systems at once. And a system that hides its true costs until they land on bills is not a “green transition”—it is a quiet, regressive tax on every home in the country.
Britain deserves honesty. Instead, it has been given a political project built on concealment, complexity, and rising costs. The figures uncovered last week confirm what many of us have been warning for years: Net Zero is not lowering bills—it is driving them to historic highs. And unless the country changes course, the financial burden on households will only grow heavier from here.
Shane Oxer Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy
SAY NO TO THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR LAND 
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