I HAVE finished reading the long-awaited Cost of Energy Review which was commissioned by the Government (“Energy prices ‘are too high’”, The Herald, October 26). It is perhaps not perfect but the author’s proposals are better than the current over-complex and highly flawed system.
I implore politicians to adopt its key recommendations. Because subsidies for low-carbon energy and other costs associated with carbon reduction have increased energy bills by 25 per cent, these subsidy costs should be itemised separately on consumers’ bills.
Much of the decarbonising should be delayed, as it will be cheaper to achieve it in the future than at present.
Intermittent generators do not face the full transmission, distribution and back-up capacity costs they impose on the system. Professor Dieter Helm, the report’s author, proposes that those who cause system costs will have to bear them.
They will have to seek contracts to back up their intermittency, by seeking those that bring into play demand responses, storage and back-up generation. Exceptions would be made where they can enter into long-term contracts with purchasers of intermittent power.
Geoff Moore,
Braeface Park, Alness.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here