Ed Miliband,
Solar energy is not the enemy. It has a legitimate role when deployed intelligently , on rooftops, commercial buildings, and appropriate brownfield sites close to demand. But it cannot be the backbone of a reliable national energy system in a northern, winter-dominated country such as the United Kingdom.
This is not a political view. It is an engineering constraint.
The real failure is leadership:
The decision to elevate an intermittent, seasonally constrained technology into a central pillar of national energy security, while selling the public a story that cannot be delivered. In energy policy, ideology cannot replace reality and reality is now catching up.
Your government is preparing to unveil a £13 billion “warm homes fund” that , by your own public messaging , leans heavily on household solar, batteries and heat pumps to create so-called “zero bill” homes.¹
That promise is intoxicating politics.
It is also dangerously misleading as a national strategy, because it rests on a basic category error:
confusing installed capacity with available power, and confusing short-term shifting with winter resilience.The seasonal truth you cannot legislate away
The UK’s solar problem is not “it doesn’t work at night” (everyone knows that). The real problem is the winter lull.
weeks and months in which Britain’s solar resource is weak, unreliable and frequently close to negligible compared with system need.Solar can surge in summer and spring and Britain has rightly celebrated new solar records in bright periods.² But the system does not fail on warm May afternoons. It fails when demand is highest and conditions are hostile. In those periods, solar is not a firm contributor; it is a variable input that often collapses.
Even industry commentary tracking system mix notes winter solar can fall to a tiny share.For example, reporting that solar’s contribution dropped to 0.8% in December in a recent year.³That is why the electricity system’s winter adequacy is not built on solar. It is built on dispatchable plant, interconnectors, reserve services, and operational interventions described in the system operator’s winter security assessments.⁴
DATA BOX 1
The Winter Lull (why “more solar” doesn’t equal “winter security”)
The UK’s solar output is highly seasonal, with winter delivering the weakest contribution.³
Solar can exceed 10% of monthly generation in exceptional spring/summer conditions, highlighting the scale of seasonal swing.²
The system operator’s winter adequacy narrative relies on margins, reserves and operational tools.Not solar delivering firm power.⁴Bottom line: solar is a useful supplement in the UK mix, but it is not a credible foundation for winter security.³⁴
The capacity myth:
Britain is being governed by headline numbers
Your plan implicitly encourages the public to believe that if we install enough solar capacity, we solve affordability and security. That is the capacity myth.Installed capacity is a political number. It grows quickly, looks impressive in speeches, and can be announced long before it is proven useful in winter. But security is not delivered by nameplate capacity. It is delivered by dependable output in the conditions that stress the system.
Even government’s own statistical treatment of renewables reminds us what’s being hidden behind the rhetoric:
solar load factors are low on average (median ~9.2% in 2024/25 under FiT reporting), and they move strongly with seasons.⁵ You can build capacity quickly and still fail to build reliability.
This is why your “zero bill” narrative is so dangerous. It implies that household kit.Solar, batteries, heat pumps, can substitute for national system resilience. But national resilience is not achieved by multiplying devices; it is achieved by ensuring that energy exists when the system needs it, and that the network can carry it.
DATA BOX 2
Capacity vs Capability (the accounting trick that breaks energy policy)
Installed capacity is the maximum theoretical output in ideal conditions.
Capability is dependable contribution under real system stress.
Solar’s output varies sharply by season; average load factors are modest and seasonal.⁵
Winter adequacy is assessed and managed through dispatchable plant, margins and operational measures.⁴
Bottom line: a country can add large amounts of solar capacity and still be exposed in winter because capability is not created by announcements.⁴⁵
Batteries:
A valuable tool, but not a winter miracle
Your plan leans on batteries as if they transform solar into reliability.¹ But batteries do not create energy. They shift energy.
They can help smooth short-term volatility, reduce peaks, and arbitrage within-day price differences. They cannot conjure winter energy that never arrived.If winter brings prolonged low-solar conditions, there is simply less surplus to store. The country then falls back on the very things your narrative tries to sideline. Gas generation, imports, and system balancing actions.
This matters because the UK is already paying heavily for system intervention. The system operator’s Annual Balancing Costs Report (FY2024/25) describes balancing costs rising, driven in part by congestion and constraints.⁶ Other analyses using NESO data have pointed to Britain hitting major balancing-cost levels rapidly in 2025.Evidence of a system under growing stress.⁷Batteries are part of a modern grid. But presenting them as the answer to winter scarcity is like presenting water tanks as the answer to a drought. They are only useful if there is water to store.
DATA BOX 3
What batteries can and cannot do
Batteries store electricity; they do not produce it.
They support short-duration balancing, not seasonal generation gaps.System operator reporting confirms balancing costs are rising and are shaped by congestion/constraints and system conditions.⁶
External analysis of NESO data highlights the scale and acceleration of balancing costs in 2025.⁷
Bottom line: batteries are a tool for operations, not a substitute for firm winter energy.⁶⁷
The £13 billion question:-
Who carries the risk when the promise fails?
Your “warm homes fund” is being sold as a path to “zero bills”.¹ Yet the UK housing stock is diverse, ageing, and in many cases poorly suited to a one-size-fits-all electrification model without substantial preparatory work. Even the policy debate around your plan is openly grappling with whether it is properly targeted and whether it risks subsidising those who least need help.⁸
The deeper issue is this:-
You can subsidise hardware, but you cannot subsidise physics. If winter output is weak and the system still depends on dispatchable power and balancing, then the public is not escaping costs. They are merely shifting where costs appear: in standing charges, network charges, taxation, and a rising bill for system management.⁶⁷A serious energy strategy would stop selling certainty where certainty does not exist.
What you must change
Stop presenting solar as a backbone technology for Britain. It is a supporting technology. Its seasonal weakness is structural.³⁴
Stop using capacity as the headline. Publish and speak in terms of dependable contribution, winter performance and whole-system cost.⁴⁶
Put rooftops and brownfield first. If solar is to grow, it should do so without industrialising productive land for marginal winter value.
Tell the truth about batteries. They are useful, but they do not solve winter scarcity.⁶
Rebuild policy around firm power and grid deliverability. Winter security is not achieved by slogans; it is achieved by dependable supply and infrastructure that exists before you mandate outcomes.⁴⁶
If you continue on the current course, you risk building the most expensive kind of failure: one where the public is promised salvation, pays for the transition, and is left with a more fragile and costly system than before.
Energy policy is not a morality play. It is a discipline. And disciplines collapse when ideology is allowed to overrule reality.
Yours sincerely,
Shane Oxer. Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy
References
1.GB News, “Ed Miliband plots £13billion energy overhaul to create ‘zero bill’ homes” (Published 30 Dec 2025).
2.GB NewsCarbon Brief, “Analysis: UK’s solar power surges…” (seasonality and high-solar months context, June 2025).
3.Carbon BriefSolar Power Portal, “2023 in review… winter saw the lowest contribution… dropping to 0.8% in December” (Jan 2024).
4.Solar Power PortalNESO, “NESO sets out expectations… Winter Outlook 25/26” (Oct 2025).
5.National Energy System Operator (NESO)DESNZ, “Feed-in Tariff load factor analysis 2024-25” (Dec 2025) — solar PV load factor and seasonal pattern.
6.GOV.UK AssetsNESO, “2025 Annual Balancing Costs Report” (PDF, Jun 2025).
7.National Energy System Operator (NESO)Nuclear Industry Association (NIA), analysis of NESO data on balancing costs reaching £2bn quickly in 2025 (Oct 2025).
8.Nuclear Industry AssociationThe Times, reporting and criticism around “zero-bill homes” concept (Dec 2025). �The Times +1
SAY NO TO THE DESTRUCTION OF OUR LAND 
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