Cutting green levies on energy bills, or watering down the UK’s commitment to net-zero carbon emissions, would fail to help households with high energy prices and store up problems for the near future, analysts have warned. Ed Matthew, campaigns director at the E3G thinktank, said: “Cutting green levies to tackle the energy bills crisis would be utterly self-defeating. It would only keep the UK addicted to gas for longer. The only cure is to ramp up clean energy investment and eliminate energy waste. That is the permanent solution to bring down energy bills. Any politician working against that is directly undermining the interests of their constituents and likely to be in the pocket of the fossil fuel lobby.” Green levies work to provide investment for insulation and other energy efficiency measures, and to support incentives for renewable energy. The energy company obligation, at about £1bn a year, provides insulation and other energy efficiency for poor households, and has saved about £11.7bn in total on fuel bills for lower-income households, but has been threatened by the Treasury in an effort to cut bills. Levies on bills that support energy efficiency and renewables are falling, from £172 last year, or 15% of fuel bills, to about £153 on bills, according to recent figures from Ofgem. Jan Rosenow, a director of the Regulatory Assistance Project, said: “Calls for cutting green levies are misplaced and a kneejerk reaction not supported by the evidence. Past levy-funded programmes have in fact reduced energy bills, as analysis has shown time and time again. Cutting levies now would leave customers paying more in the long term.” Reducing green levies has been tried before – the then prime minister David Cameron famously instructed his ministers to “cut the green crap” in 2013. That move, according to research from Carbon Brief, has meant the UK’s domestic energy bills are now £2.5bn a year higher than they would have been if the green incentives had been left intact. Yet even with the poor investment in insulation since Cameron’s decision, analysis shows energy efficiency has cut the UK’s energy bills by about £1,000 a year. Renewable energy is also now much cheaper, with the costs of wind turbines and solar panels plummeting in recent years. This has helped renewable energy companies make a significant net contribution to reducing the UK’s electricity prices, as the cost of gas has soared. Wind and solar paid back £160m in the final quarter of 2021 because they receive an agreed price, called a strike price, for their energy. When the wholesale price is higher than the strike price, generators pay back the difference, and this is reflected in lower bills for consumers in subsequent quarterly periods. The payback could reach £770m by the end of winter, or £27 per customer on the average bill. Blaming high energy prices on renewable generation is “seriously misinformed”, the chief representative of the UK’s wind industry has said. Dan McGrail, chief executive of the trade body RenewableUK, said: “The UK needs to phase out fossil fuels as fast as possible to provide long-term energy security and certainty for consumers. Figures published by Ofgem show that green levies are falling, so any attempt to blame renewables and net zero [for high energy prices] is seriously misinformed. Let’s be clear: this is a crisis caused by the soaring cost of gas.” He added: “The escape route from volatile and uncontrollable gas prices couldn’t be clearer. Investing in our green future secures low-cost reliable power as well as getting the UK to net zero as fast as possible.” Producing more gas in the North Sea, which some have also called for, would do little or nothing to reduce energy prices in the UK, because any additional gas would be sold on international markets to the highest bidder, analysts added.