Forcing households with gas boilers to pay more to fund the UK’s net zero goals would be “an abomination”, according to Chris O’Shea, the chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica.
In a blunt warning to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, O’Shea slammed the reported plan to move green levies from electricity to gas bills in order to boost heat pump take-up.
He told The Telegraph : “It’s a preposterous idea. The idea you’d put the levies on gas bills will mean those better-off people with heat pumps will be subsidised by those poorer people with gas boilers. That’s nonsense.”
He said the Government should use general taxation to fund green policies instead of burdening working families still dependent on gas: “To put them on gas bills would be an abomination, outrageous and a terrible distortion of the market. It would also be unfair because the people [who have] gas boilers the longest will also be those who can least afford to pay higher bills.”
The row centres on Miliband’s bid to make electric heating more attractive by stripping environmental levies from electricity bills – a move the Climate Change Committee supports.
But critics say it would hike average gas bills by £120 and deepen energy inequality.
“I have heard the argument that it will encourage more people to use electricity,” O’Shea added. “But encouraging people to use subsidised electricity by forcing gas users to pay just doesn’t make any sense.”
O’Shea also questioned the Labour frontbencher’s flagship pledge to cut energy bills by £300, calling it unrealistic: “The energy transition is not cheap and it is not simple. If it were, then we would have done it already.”
While he welcomed long-term ambitions, he said: “What renewables will do is give you more price stability. You will get fewer highs and fewer lows.
“Home-grown renewables give you more security than imported gas. But I wouldn’t have made the £300 statement because it makes you a hostage to fortune.”
As debate rages over how best to decarbonise, O’Shea made it clear: fair funding matters just as much as ambition.
Plans to make people with boilers pay more are ‘an abomination’ says O’Shea appeared first on Energy Live News.