Switching to electricity is the way to power future Britain

If the UK is serious about economic growth, lower energy costs for business and for households have to be a critical component. The best and most credible path to achieve that is to modernise the power grid to unlock more homegrown power and accelerate electrification.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the current tensions in the Middle East have shown how exposed the UK energy system is to forces beyond our control. Providing short-term support to shield households and businesses is expensive, and isn’t sustainable in the longer term. The only durable solution is to reduce our dependence on gas altogether.

Electrification, powered by clean, homegrown renewables, is the optimal route to doing that. The more clean power we can connect, the less often gas sets the price – and the lower and more stable energy costs become over time.

We have made real progress, but completing this transition depends on having a grid that can facilitate it. The UK has lagged and delayed investment into its grid over many years and it is now critical that we make up that deficit.

Large‑scale programmes are already unlocking billions of pounds of private investment in the transmission network – the motorways of our grid. At the end of this year, Ofgem will make decisions on how much investment into the electricity distribution network – the A roads – to approve for the next five years. Taking a strategic long-term view here will be vital if we are to unlock the connections necessary for homes, heat pumps, electric vehicles, data centres and manufacturing.

However, enabling more homegrown clean power to flow is only part of the solution. We also need consumers to accelerate the shift away from gas, petrol and diesel and towards electricity, with all the efficiencies this would unlock.

But this will only happen if we can make electricity cheaper relative to the alternatives. That means reversing the current approach, in which more policy costs are levied on electricity than gas, to tip the economics in favour of electricity use. That would accelerate take-up of electric vehicles, heat pumps and industrial electrification – and in doing so enable the benefits of a clean, homegrown power system to be fully unleashed across the economy.