Energy Companies Faced with £4.7bn Bill

The UK has been looking for ways to generate renewable energy. Nuclear power stations and wind farms have seemed to be the answer. However, the bill that comes along with hooking these new sources of power up to the UK grid seems to worry many companies after finding out that the UK government does not plan on picking up the bill.

In order to make these renewable energy sources work, over 1,000 kilometers of new cable will have to be laid. This means that this is the biggest expansion of the UK power grid in over half a century. The Electricity Networks Strategy Group said this will help move the UK to a low carbon energy supply. By 2020, these renewable resources could make up almost 30% of the electricity generated.

Since department officials have stated that the UK government has no intention of picking up the tab, this leaves energy companies and their consumers to pay the £4.7 billion bill. This is very likely to lead to higher bills for any households and companies that use electricity. This comes as bad news to many families in the UK that have already been under attack from rising energy bills. These power bills had just recently started to go back down due to the lower oil prices.

Other experts have noted that one reason for the high bill is due to the fact that these will be offshore wind farms. They note that these kinds of farms are more expensive than onshore wind farms due to the fact that underwater cable has to be laid.