We’ll slash your bills – but it will cost you more, says Ed Davey

Christopher Booker,Telegraph
" In essence, what the Government is proposing is to make the fossil-fuel energy that currently provides 70 per cent of our electricity so expensive that it will make those ludicrously subsidised windmills look competitive. The coal-fired power stations which on Thursday were providing nearly half our electricity (against only 1.5 per cent from wind) are to be put out of business. In addition to the £100 billion the Government wants us to spend on useless windmills, we will have to pay tens of billions more for infinitely more efficient gas-fired power plants, firstly to keep our lights on when the wind is not blowing, but also, when the wind is blowing, to be kept inefficiently idling, running at a hefty loss (and, incidentally, chucking out more CO₂ than when they are running properly).
All this we will have to pay for, coupled with the tens of billions more we are to be charged for “energy saving” measures and “smart meters” to cut down our electricity use. Yet somehow, according to Mr Davey, “the average household bill will be £94 lower in 2020 than it would be without low-carbon energy policies being pursued”.
This is pure insanity. It will only “power low-carbon economic growth” in the sense that it will pour billions of pounds into the pockets of the foreign-based companies that make those useless wind turbines. By doing everything to dis-incentivise the fossil-fuel power production that currently supplies more than two-thirds of our needs, it will scarcely help to keep our lights on. And it will in no way “protect consumers”, rather rigging our energy market in favour of the most inefficient and costly way of producing electricity ever devised. .."