The Onward think tank has proposed that electricity is too expensive and so discouraging inbound investment and people’s appetite to switch to electrify. Claire Coutinho (pictured), the Shadow Energy Secretary, has backed a report that argues the case for lower prices even at the cost of emissions for faster action.

High prices, Onward believes, are defeating the very reason why the costs were incurred in the first place: to meet environmental objectives. Expensive electricity is hampering the electrification of heating, transport and industrial activity, pushing progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions ever further away.

At heart there is the deep political divide between free markets versus regulation, the ‘Market’ driven adoption due to personal benefit versus the imposed change because the government ‘knows best’. Both are, of course, something of an illusion, there is never a truly free market and the government can only control so much.

Still, there argument is one of degree, and it is fair to say that the usual suspects have lined up to support, or decry, the ideas. None-the-less they are worth looking at in more detail, to at least understand them.

Onward commissioned an independent study from Transira Energy to quantify the full system costs of continuing with the current policy direction, versus cost savings that can be achieved by taking a new approach. It models a power system that prioritises firm generation capacity, responding to demand, rather than forcing consumers to react to the vagaries of the British weather. This plan includes a diversified mix of nuclear, renewables and gas generation, which builds a much cheaper power system that can be used to electrify and decarbonise more of the economy.

The savings. Onward say, are substantial. The alternative policy pathway saves £320bn between 2030 and 2050 and reduces system costs by 20 per cent in 2040 versus ‘business as usual’. Cheap electricity, it argues, can drive the adoption of electric vehicles and heat pumps, via consumer preference, and not state mandates.

Needless to say, some have been unimpressed, and other comments remain somewhat cryptic, with Lawrence Slade, chief executive of the Energy Networks Association saying: "Keeping energy affordable and secure, now and in the future, is why we need to invest at pace in an electricity network that can harness the UK's abundant homegrown renewable energy today, protecting the country from volatile international price spikes and disruptions."

Make of that what you will.

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