New deep dive: "Octopus Smoke and Mirrors" exposes what's really going on behind the hype at Octopus, the UK's biggest energy supplier. Spoiler: a lot of valuation puffery, restated accounts and marketing flim-flam. A thread (1/10) Recap: Last year I asked if we'd hit "Peak Pink Octopus" after news of spinning off Kraken (their tech platform) at £10bn, valuing the whole group at £15bn. It smelled like hype before a sale which was borne out by the actual valuation of ~£6.7bn. (2/10)

https://x.com/7Kiwi/status/1949387045195088176?s=20

🚨New article alert: "Net Zero is the Road to Serfdom" – UK’s rush to Net Zero is futile virtue signalling, hiking energy costs, and tanking the economy. Inspired by Hayek's warnings on central planning, we’re on the Road to Serfdom. A thread (1/11) #NetZero #UKEnergy Labour MPs boast about "secure" renewables & wind power, while Starmer signs us up to stricter EU Net Zero rules. But govt control of energy is leading to energy austerity & poor economic performance. How far down the road to serfdom are we? (2/11)

https://x.com/TrisOsborneMP/status/2017624756644716962?s=20

There's a lot going on today, but nevertheless it's important to understand what happened in the latest Ofgem price cap. Labour's fairground shell game of shuffling of subsidy costs cannot hide the increasing costs of renewables. A thread 🧵(1/n) First up, Labour promised a £300 cut in bills at the election. They also claimed they would reduce bills by £150 in April, but the reality is a reduction of just £117. So both Labour's promises were lies (2/n)

The productivity of the electricity generation sector has halved since generation peaked in 2005. Renewables are dragging us over the energy cliff. A thread (1/n) Over the past few weeks the government has released the results of the AR7 and AR7a renewables auctions and celebrated the creation of up to 17,000 jobs. But more jobs in electricity generation is not a goodie thing - akin to digging holes and filling them in again (2/n)

The results of the AR7a renewables auction expose government lies about the cost of renewables and net zero. A thread 🧵(1/n) (link to full article in bio) AR7a awarded contracts for 4.9GW of new solar at a clearing price of £68/MWh (in 2025 prices), 1.3GW of onshore wind at £75/MWh and a further 21MW of tidal stream capacity. (2/n)

One failed turbine at Scroby Sands exposes the scale of the cost of decommissioning offshore wind farms. And there’s precious little cash being set aside to cover it. A thread (1/n) Scroby Sands is a relatively small 60MW offshore windfarm. In 2023 one of the 30 turbines caught fire and owner RWE has decided to decommission that single turbine (2/n)

The data is in, so now we know how much the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme cost us in 2024/25. A thread 🧵(1/n) First, overall generation under the scheme was down on the year at just under 8TWh. It is beginning to look like a downtrend has been in place since 2020/21 (2/n)

If NESO cannot produce a complete set of energy scenarios and we can't rely on the costs, then what is the point of NESO. A thread (1/n) Many green blobbers have got very huffy about my report for the IEA looking into the various estimates of the cost of Net Zero (2/n)
iea.org.uk/publications/t…

Another record year for CfD subsidies with £2.6bn paid out to renewables generators. Where does all the money go? A thread 🧵(1/n) 2025 was a record year, with £2.6bn paid out, up from £2.4bn in 2024. Offshore wind took the lion's share of over £2bn, with tree-burning taking £428m, dedicated biomass £118m. Onshore wind took 67m and solar £0.1m. (2/n)

Yesterday's AR7 results show that Miliband, NESO and the CCC are gaslighting the nation. AR7 is locking in index-linked high electricity prices for decades. A thread 🧵(1/n) So, what happened? A total of 8.4GW of offshore wind was awarded contracts. Of this 8.2GW was fixed-bottom at an average of £91/MWh in 2024 prices, with 0.2GW of floating at £216/MWh. But these prices show the price of offshore wind is rising (2/n)

Alastair and Rory caught telling porkies about solar power while shilling for lossmaking Fuse Energy. When facts and truth are ignored, The Rest is Propaganda. A thread 🧵 (1/n) The central claim of their clip was that solar is a “very cheap and affordable way to generate electricity”. But in the UK at least, that claim is manifestly untrue. Solar is in fact very expensive (2/n)

https://x.com/RestIsPolitics/status/2002035470943854731?s=20

It's the end of the year, so time to to take a light-hearted view of the past 12 months of our energy policy pantomime. A thread (1/n) As it's Christmas, the season of goodwill, we should begin with the Prince Charming, Snow White and Cinderella of energy policy, namely Richard Tice, Kemi Badenoch and Claire Coutinho who together have collapsed the cosy consensus supporting Net Zero (2/n)

With its new economic annex setting out the costs, NESO has inadvertently blown the doors off Net Zero. And even then, the costs of action are understated and the costs of stopping the race to Net Zero overstated. A thread 🧵(1/n) The press reported that NESO's Holistic Transition to Net Zero would cost £350bn more than Falling Behind. The used this chart as evidence (2/n)

None of the catastrophic climate predictions have come to pass. Emperor Ed Miliband has been left alone, shivering half-naked on the rapidly shrinking net zero iceberg. Time to follow the science and ditch Net Zero. A thread (1/n) The Climate Change Act contains important safeguards that allow for emissions reduction targets and carbon budgets to be altered if The Science™ changes (2/n)

Gas prices are down, but the energy price cap has gone up. Why are our energy bills going ever higher? A thread (1/n) For context, we had the highest industrial electricity prices and second highest domestic prices in 2024 (source IEA/DESNZ) (2/n)

Arla has ended the Bovaer trial in the UK, just after massive problems appeared in Denmark. But what bovine stupidity led to Bovaer being introduced in the first place? A thread (1/n) Bovaer is a product of the Net Zero cult that has seen UK FIRES call for beef and lamb to eliminated by 2050. Of course they want to reduce methane emissions as well as CO2 (2/n)

Rising consumer energy debt coupled with suppliers not conforming with new capital adequacy rules shows that Ofgem is asleep at the wheel. New thread (1/n) Consumer energy debt is rising. The amount outstanding for people under formal repayment arrangements rose to a record £1.1bn in 2Q25. Arrears past due for >91 days rose to £3.32bn, giving total debt of £4.43bn (2/n)

Both Reform and Tories have committed to getting rid of Net Zero. While these commitments are welcome, ending Net Zero brings some risks that need to be mitigated (1/n) First up, cutting carbon taxes on gas-fired electricity and ending Renewables Obligation subsidies early will cut revenues for these generators and asset values will collapse (2/n)

Today is a sad day, but the show must go on. Time to think about the poor bankers if Reform or Tories get in and abandon Renewables Obligations and cut carbon taxes (1/n) ROCs will cost about £7.8bn this financial year. Onshore and offshore wind are the biggest recipients of ROC subsidies (2/n)

Yesterday, Miliband announced the for the AR7 renewables Contract for Difference (CfD) auction. He's offering £113/MWh for fixed and £271/MWh for floating offshore wind index-linked for 20 years. This will drive up our electricity bills & miss his own CP2030 target. (1/n) First up he has set the budget for offshore wind at £1,080m, split £900m for fixed-bottom and £180m for floating offshore wind. In essence this means the Government expects this auction to add £1.08bn to our bills, which compares to the £2.4bn total CfD cost in 2024/25 (2/n)

New research from More In Common shows high energy prices are driving a revolutionary mood. When asked about our institutions, 43% of people can't help thinking "just let them all burn". What is going on. (1/n) First, there is widespread concern and stress about energy bills across all income groups, even those households earning >£100,000/yr (2/n)