RenewableUK's response to Reform’s net zero claims

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4 September 2025

This article was first published in Energy Voice on 28 August 2025.

It would be very easy to write an article rebutting point by point the comments made by the Deputy Leader of Reform UK Richard Tice in his recent Energy Voice op-ed.

It would talk about how every opinion poll consistently shows the vast majority of the public are incredibly supportive of renewables and decarbonisation. How, far from causing de-industrialisation, there are more than 2,000 onshore and offshore wind supply chain companies based all over the country, including 160 factories.

We’re manufacturing blades in Hull and on the Isle of Wight, turbine towers in Liverpool, foundations on Teesside, offshore wind substations in Newcastle and cables in Hartlepool. Far from China.

We expect that over 100,000 people will be working in wind by 2030, rising from 55,000 today, and I’m sure they’ll all be frustrated that their livelihoods are being politicised.

But for the vast majority of the country, what they really need to hear is a credible plan for economic regeneration, energy security and the cost of living. This is where the article, and current Reform policy, falls down.

No one contests that wind and solar once required considerable subsidy. But what matters for billpayers today is that new wind and solar are now cost-competitive with any other power source.

This is why economically competitive states in the US – like Texas and California – and China, which Richard touted as success stories of energy abundance, have embraced renewables.

‘Energy realism’ should be embracing the most cost-competitive forms of power, in a lowest cost mix. But that’s not current Reform UK policy.

Banning all energy storage and mandating that the country should underground all grid infrastructure is not a policy based on economic regeneration, but one which puts party prejudices over local decision making – at a huge cost to billpayers.

In reality, which is the only thing that should really matter, any party elected after the next election is going to have to deal with an enormous increase in electricity demand – regardless of the Government’s stance on net zero or clean technologies.

There will be data centres demanding new electricity and, probably, more and more people making the switch to an electric vehicle as they continue to fall in cost and improve in performance.

Put to one side your level of pessimism or optimism about the cost of new nuclear, it’s not credible to suggest a large number of new power plants will be constructed quickly.

Given this reality, we can meet this demand with wind and solar, or we can meet it by massively increasing gas imports to burn for electricity – potentially doubling our need for LNG from countries around the world.

Importantly, it isn’t credible to suggest the UK can source this from the North Sea, or fracking, or that this would decouple the country from volatile international gas prices.

Being more exposed to international gas prices is not a platform for stability or prosperity.

We cannot ignore the fact that the Government spent £47 billion shielding billpayers from the recent gas price shock. Or that without this intervention 24% of small businesses said they could close or downsize. We can only imagine what the implications for energy intensive companies would have been.

We cannot ignore that these gas price spikes keep occurring throughout history, how close we recently came to being cut off from Qatari LNG running through the strait of Hormuz, or how vulnerable gas networks under the North Sea are.

As so many businesses across the UK have found – if you’re pragmatic and look at the figures, you’ll find renewables represent a real opportunity to reduce bills permanently.