Net Zero Watch has slammed the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), which has claimed in a new report that electricity price rises are mainly caused by gas prices. The campaign group says that the claims are “misleading in the extreme” and risk undermining public trust in independent energy research.
According to Net Zero Watch director Andrew Montford, the UKERC claim – which was made in their 2025 review of energy policy – relies on cherrypicked dates and fail to explain the actual underlying drivers of electricity prices.
“UKERC has chosen a cynical framing that flatters Ed Miliband’s preferred Net Zero narrative rather than one that explains reality. The report compares prices in mid 2021 to mid 2025. The reason for choosing such an strange starting point becomes clear once you understand that gas prices were low in 2021 due to post-Covid oversupply. Choosing April 2021 therefore makes the effect of gas prices look large. Most other starting points would have made the gas price effect almost disappear.
Meanwhile, choosing such a short period – just for years – hides the long slow increase in prices driven by renewables deployment on the grid.”
Net Zero Watch has shown, using the same data as UKERC, that the long term increase in prices is driven almost completely by renewables.
Andrew Montford added: “The pronouncements of most official bodies on renewables, electricity and the energy system as a whole cannot be taken at face value. UKERC is a disgrace.”
Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice said: “The UK public can do without this kind of misleading behaviour. Public bodies have a responsibility to illuminate reality, not to frame cherry-picked statistics in ways that serve political narratives and the interests of rent-seekers. All this does is damage the public’s trust in independent expertise. In an economic situation in which spending cuts will be vital in the very near future, UKERC are now on notice. They have put themselves in the firing line by choosing to act as megaphones for Ed Miliband and the Labour Party.”
