Households in Great Britain owed £5.02 billion in overdue energy debt and arrears by June 2026. While families struggle to clear those bills, they must also finance the contracts, balancing actions and infrastructure behind Britain’s energy transition.
Our assessment is blunt: the transition is failing its affordability test. Ministers must answer for the costs of their chosen pathway, the consequences for households and industry, and the failure to coordinate new generation with the network needed to deliver it.
This follows our investigation, The Transition the Public Was Never Told. Our eight-page report is reproduced below, with the evidence behind the argument.
£5 BILLION IN DEBT IS AN AFFORDABILITY FAILURE
Ofgem’s figures put household energy debt and arrears older than 91 days at £5.02 billion in Q2 2026. The total rose by £230 million in just three months and was 13% higher than a year earlier. The report traces the increase from £1.09 billion in early 2018.
These are unpaid essential bills. A fall in a later quarterly tariff leaves those arrears outstanding. Families must meet current costs while paying off earlier consumption. Judging energy policy by a headline tariff alone misses that lasting damage.
The government and Ofgem’s joint debt strategy puts debt-management costs recovered through consumer bills at approximately £67 a year, averaged across payment methods. Unaffordable energy creates further charges for consumers. Ministers must tackle the underlying cost as well as the arrears.
SHOW WHAT THE SAME ENERGY COSTS
The historical starting point matters. Parliamentary evidence recorded a 2006 dual-fuel benchmark of around £811, using 3,300 kWh of electricity and 20,500 kWh of gas. The remembered figure of about £350 relates to electricity alone.
The report’s ONS electricity-price comparison shows an increase of approximately 202% between the 2006 annual average and Q2 2026. Prices roughly doubled between Q1 2021 and Q1 2023. The subsequent fall left prices well above their earlier level, alongside a much larger debt burden.
A changing consumption benchmark changes the headline bill. Government should publish fixed-consumption comparisons so the public can see what has happened to prices.
£811 TO £3,314 AT FIXED CONSUMPTION
Applying the January–March 2027 unit rates and standing charges forecast by Cornwall Insight on 30 September 2026 to the 2006 energy quantities produces an illustrative annualised cost of £3,313.94. That is approximately 4.09 times the £811 historical benchmark: a 309% increase in cash terms.
This is a dated forecast illustration, not a confirmed bill or a prediction for the whole of 2027. Consumption is fixed, while the historic standard-credit and forecast direct-debit tariff bases differ; the calculation is not inflation-adjusted. A later British Gas forecast used the much lower modern consumption benchmark. Page seven explains the calculation and its basis.
The demand is straightforward: show what households pay for the same quantities of energy, with every bill component visible.
THE COSTS THAT CHEAP GENERATION CLAIMS MUST INCLUDE
NESO’s own report explains that variable wind and solar require additional balancing actions, and that this requirement is growing. Balancing expenditure was around £2.7 billion in 2024–25, more than double its 2019–20 level. Within that total, thermal constraint costs reached £1.7 billion, up 64% in one year.
NESO links the constraint increase partly to Scottish network outages during reinforcement and high wind output. It expects continuing pressure where generation connections outpace network construction. Our assessment is that consumers are financing a serious failure to coordinate generation and delivery.
CfDs add another financial relationship that needs transparent accounting. They provide two-way settlement around a contractual strike price: generators receive top-ups below the reference price and repay above it. The Commons Library’s July 2026 briefing put the typical household allowance at almost £40 a year. The full consumer account must show net contract costs alongside networks, balancing and dependable capacity.
A generation price alone cannot establish the affordability of the electricity system.
CARBON PRICING IS A POLICY CHOICE — MINISTERS MUST OWN IT
The government’s own compensation guidance acknowledges that carbon pricing through the UK Emissions Trading Scheme and Carbon Price Support increases wholesale and retail electricity prices in the short to medium term. It also recognises the threat to the competitiveness of electricity-intensive businesses.
Carbon charges on fossil-fuel generation and support for low-carbon generation are separate policy interventions. Both belong in the national account. International fuel-price shocks leave ministers responsible for the domestic costs they choose to impose.
Households and industry deserve a clear explanation of each charge, its purpose, its cost and the alternatives considered.
DEPENDABLE POWER MUST COME BEFORE POLITICAL DEADLINES
A functioning electricity system must deliver during low-wind periods, after sunset and at peak demand. As conventional stations retire, government must secure dependable replacement capacity and account for the reserves and stability services needed to keep supplies reliable.
An Electricity Margin Notice requests additional available capacity. Each event should come with a clear record of its causes, the actions taken and the resulting cost. Consumers deserve to know what maintaining security requires, and whether planning decisions are making that task more expensive.
THE WARNINGS WERE THERE BEFORE THE ACT
Citizens Advice and National Energy Action documented fuel-debt distress before the Climate Change Act of 2008. That history makes the duty to protect affordability more pressing: successive governments already knew that households were vulnerable to rising essential costs.
The report brings those warnings together with parliamentary and Ofgem debt figures from 2006 onwards. Policy should be tested against the financial position of the people who must pay for it.
THE PUBLIC DESERVES THE COMPLETE ACCOUNT
We call for an independent national comparison of credible energy pathways, including nuclear and dependable generation, with transparent costs for contracts, networks, balancing, reserves and finance. It must examine household affordability, industrial competitiveness and the consequences for communities and land.
Debt figures alone do not allocate the increase to individual policies. They demonstrate the urgency. The documented system costs identify decisions that government must justify.
Consumers cannot pay their bills with a target date. Ministers must show that their chosen system delivers electricity people can afford, when they need it.
READ THE EVIDENCE — THEN HELP US DEMAND ANSWERS
The final report page lists the sources behind the findings. The original records can be followed through the links in this article and the source titles shown below.
MAKE THEM SHOW THE EVIDENCE
Support our Parliamentary petition calling for the suspension of Climate Change Act targets and a full national impact assessment. Share this investigation, send it to your MP and ask for a response to the costs and planning failures identified here.
SIGN AND SHARE THE PARLIAMENTARY PETITION
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/780321
Shane Oxer — Hope to Save Our Countryside
Campaigner for fairer and affordable energy. Follow the campaign and subscribe for further investigations.
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