Ofgem Caught Using Climate Armageddon ‘Worst Case Scenario’ for Energy Planning

Are you familiar with the Peep Show episode when Jeremy whacks up the thermostat to 29°C?

Jeremy: I’m freezing. Let’s whack it up to 29.

Mark: 29 degrees, are you insane?

Jeremy: I don’t actually want it to be 29, but you’ve got to give it something to aim for. It’ll get hotter quicker.

Mark: No, it won’t, it’s either on or off. You set it, it achieves the correct temperature, it switches off.

Jeremy: Oh sure, you set it to 23, it’ll be pootering along, ‘Oh yeah, 23, easy. Yeah, nearly there.’ Wouldn’t you rather ‘Fuck! 29? Christ, let’s get cracking, got to generate some serious heat!’ Then when it hits 23, we’re suddenly all like ‘Click. Sorry. Already there.’ And the boiler will be like ‘What the fuck?’

Mark: You want to try to trick the boiler?

I only ask, because Ofgem, the UK’s energy regulator, appears to be using Jez’s logic as the guiding principle behind the targets it’s setting for the Distribution Network Operators (DNOs, the companies that distribute electricity around the country) in the public consultation that forms part of the ‘price control’ mechanism for 2028-33 and sets the charges associated with network costs for that five year period.

Comically, Ofgem requires the DNOs to develop their future plans under the assumptions of RCP8.5.

RCP8.5 is the IPCC’s worst case future climate change scenario. Back in June, Chris Morrison, of this parish, wrote a comprehensive demolition of its continued use by climate alarmists despite, as Roger Pielke has noted, even the Biden Administration abandoning it back in 2022 on the grounds that it was ludicrous.

As Chris Morrison points out, RCP 8.5 assumes a 4°C increase in temperature by the end of the century, despite temperatures barely rising by 0.25°C over the past 25 years. Additionally, RCP 8.5 anticipates dramatic rises in world population (which isn’t happening), substantially higher GDP growth than we’re seeing and dramatically increased use of coal, coupled with precious little adoption of renewable energy. As the table below illustrates, these concerns are alarmist nonsense.

Maybe Ofgem is right to follow Jez’s approach? What could be the downside to gunning for the unrealistic targets of RCP8.5? Well, increased upfront costs is one such downside. Pylons have to be made sturdier, the cables strung between them more robust, infrastructure on the coast must be moved further inland or uphill to avoid inundation, and there must be mitigation of theoretical storm damage.

Ofgem recognises that RCP8.5 looks increasingly improbable as trend lines refuse to do the climate alarmist’s bidding. However, the justification boils down to over-erring on the side of caution. But, of course, it’s us, the tax- and bill-payers who have to stump up for the inflated costs.

However, it isn’t only in landing us all with higher infrastructure costs that Ofgem seem to be acting in a cavalier way with our money.

The five-year period running from 2028 to 2033 covers one year prior to the 2029 General Election and four years afterwards. Given that the current Labour Government is plumbing new depths of unpopularity and that its main rivals, Reform and the Conservatives, have both promised to undo much of Ed Miliband’s Net Zero strategy, wouldn’t you think that Ofgem would require the DNO’s to come up with a ‘plan B’, one that lays out how its strategy could be unwound at the lowest possible price should government subsidies be scaled back?

While no government should be able to tie the hands of a future administration, it seems that Miliband’s Net Zero zealotry may result in long-term contracts being awarded that commit both the contractor and the taxpayer being on the hook for years to come, regardless of likely changes to government policy.

In the event that our monthly utility bills under a Reform or Tory administration continue to get lumbered with the costs that are earmarked for the myriad subsidies and other payments to bring about Net Zero, I suggest that such costs are clearly itemised on each householder’s bill and labelled as ‘Labour legacy charge’.

Once billpayers recognise the proportion of their energy bill that is propping up Miliband’s (and May’s, Johnson’s, Sunak’s) vanity projects, the prospect of a return to the path to Net Zero may recede even further into the future.

The consultation is open until December 17th 2025, and Ofgem tells us that it’s keen on getting responses from members of the public. I for one would encourage you to respond to the consultation suggesting it tones down its climate alarmism and not make it any more difficult than it already will be for the next government to slow down the job-destroying, bill-inflating pursuit of Net Zero. Governments are supposed to serve the people.