Zonal pricing debate should be of interest

GREG Jackson at Octopus says zonal pricing will bring down everyone's prices, but Chris O'Shea at Centrica argues that they won't. Why is it so confusing?

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Electricity prices are too high for sure. The Government has just handed some big discounts to industry which should help the economy, but what about domestic consumers, what can be done for them?

There are energy saving measures like LED lightbulbs. There are existing options like special tariffs where electricity is cheaper at night. But bills are still high.

That's because the UK's high electricity prices are linked to high international gas prices, the average wholesale price in the last year was £80/MWh, well above the contract price for most of our windfarms, because gas generation costs a lot more.

The electricity industry is rapidly weaning itself off gas, and gas generation was below 30 per cent of the total in the last year but ironically gas still sets the UK price 95 per cent of the time.