Britain Can Save £500 by Scrapping Net Zero, If It Ignores Most of the Bill

Onward's analysis presents a large headline saving from an Alternative Policy Pathway that drops the UK's statutory net‑zero target after 2029 and leans more on gas and nuclear while removing the UK carbon price from power generation. The report finds £320 billion of cumulative savings in the GB power system between 2030 and 2050 and 524 million tonnes of extra power‑sector CO2; spread across roughly 30 million households and 20 years this becomes the roughly £530 per household per year figure publicised.

However, the report explicitly confines its modelling to power‑system costs and operational power‑sector emissions and does not assess consequences for heat, transport, industry or the broader economy. It also does not forecast household electricity bills. Because the APP assumes reduced uptake of electric vehicles, heat pumps and electrolytic hydrogen, projected electricity demand in 2050 is about 441 TWh—around 10% lower than the business‑as‑usual 484 TWh case. That smaller power system is a large part of why the APP looks cheaper on a power‑sector ledger.

Critics argue that counting reductions in power‑system spending while excluding the fuels, appliances and infrastructure households would still buy misleads about total household costs. For example, the Climate Change Committee's Seventh Carbon Budget estimates that a typical household's home‑energy bill (excluding driving) could fall from about £1,650 in 2025 to roughly £940 in 2050—a reduction of around £710 per year—while also noting the transition requires average additional upfront investments the CCC annualises at about £730 per year. The Onward pathway also relies on assumptions that gas prices return toward pre‑crisis levels after 2030 and that new nuclear can be built at far lower costs than recent UK projects have shown.

Further context points to risks the APP does not fully internalise. UK Energy Research Centre analysis found wholesale fuel prices—mainly gas—explained around two‑thirds of the real increase in a typical household electricity bill between 2021 and 2025, with only 13% attributable to policy costs. On the other hand, UK government analysis referenced in 2026 estimates climate change could cost Britain 3–4% of GDP by 2050 and around 8% by the 2070s, an economic exposure the APP does not address. In short, while the Onward report highlights genuine challenges for affordable, reliable power—such as grid and balancing costs and rising offshore wind expenses—its conclusion that scrapping net‑zero would save households the headline amount depends on narrower assumptions and boundary choices than the public figure suggests.