Cut My Bills
A change in our electricity markets could deliver a triple win.
It would reduce what households pay for electricity, boost the British economy, and help us clean up our planet. And today is our one chance to make this change.
Lower bills for every household, by as much as £265 in Northern Scotland.
Scotland would see the cheapest energy prices in Europe - attracting new businesses - and heavy industry could get 30% more subsidy without costing households a penny more.
Based on wind wasted in 2024. Using this power instead creates better economics for abundant solar and wind, and is the only way to a clean power system by 2030.
Our current broken system costs households and businesses
Right now our electricity bills are high and it’s getting worse. Part of this problem is our single electricity market.
It means we are wasting huge amounts of cheap wind power which people and businesses have to pay for. Twice. When wind power can’t get to where it’s needed without overloading the power cables, we pay for them to switch off. And then we pay again for nearby gas power to turn on. These costs are called constraint costs, and they show up on our bills. Constraint costs have cost consumers between £1-2bn per year since 2020.
So what's the alternative?
A local electricity price is one that reflects what it costs to produce and supply electricity in any given place around the country. If there’s too much green energy somewhere, we should make it cheap so that we don’t need to pay the constraint costs for it to be wasted.
By removing these costs, everyone’s bills go down.
Not only would this help households in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, it would help businesses be internationally competitive too. New industry would be attracted to the North to access the cheap electricity, creating jobs and helping the economy. That’s why local electricity pricing is the secret sauce.
FAQs
Will people pay very different prices across Great Britain?
Under local pricing, while everyone's bills will go down, there should be very little change in the spread of prices across England and Wales. Prices will go down more in the North of Scotland, reflecting the fact that there's lots of wind power there.
Isn't this a big, risky change that could go wrong?
This isn't a new thing. About half of the power stations in the developed world use local pricing - and they have lower energy costs and a lot of clean, green power.
Hey I'm Constantine, welcome to Octopus Energy!
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