The relationship between UK energy suppliers and consumers must change. As well as migrating towards a smarter and more logical system for distribution and use, we need to become smart customers, using intelligent energy.
The UK energy market faces two problems. First, energy is unnecessarily valued at a commodity trading price, even if it has not been purchased and its costs of generation have not increased. Secondly, tariffs for energy vary between ever greater extremes due to imbalance between supply and demand, but become fixed when it is consumed. Neither situation is sustainable.
At the same time, the UK should seek to become as self-sufficient as possible to minimise the impact of a weaponised energy market. This will automatically make UK renewable energy more important.
UK electricity is generated by gas/oil (42 per cent), renewables (38 per cent), nuclear (17 per cent) and coal (3 per cent). Renewables, which comprise wind (26 per cent), solar...