Cornwall Insight’s forecast shows around 5% of a large company’s total energy bill will be swallowed by these TPC increases over the next five years – threatening tight margins and increasing the pressure to pass costs on to consumers.
The breakdown is alarming:
- Grid investment alone will add £100,000 to annual bills from April 2026, rising to £250,000 by 2030. With wind and solar farms sprouting in remote corners of Britain, National Grid needs to build new transmission lines to move electricity across the country.
- Nuclear costs will also land hard. The new Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model for projects like Sizewell C will see an extra £200,000 added to bills by 2026.
- Hydrogen production subsidies, discounts for neighbours of pylons, and other schemes may also be folded into bills, but final decisions are still pending.
These hikes are mostly fixed and can’t be dodged through smarter energy use or demand-shifting.
Businesses will pay whether they use energy or not – and that’s fuelling frustration among CFOs and energy managers alike.
“For many businesses, these charges are not just numbers on a bill – they can mean difficult decisions about jobs, investment, and prices for customers. The challenge now is to make sure the transition is funded fairly, so that while we build the low carbon system we all need, we don’t leave households and businesses feeling like they’re carrying an impossible burden.”
Craig Lowery, Cornwall Insight
While some energy-intensive industries benefit from support schemes such as Network Charging Compensation (NCC), most sectors don’t qualify.
Discounts of up to 90% may apply to some steel, glass or chemical plants, and smaller manufacturers could see their costs fall by 25% from 2027. But retail chains, logistics firms, water companies and transport operators are left exposed.
Ofgem says the pain will pay off, eventually – arguing that better grid infrastructure and new nuclear plants will lead to cleaner, more secure and ultimately cheaper energy.
But until those benefits materialise, business users are being handed a hefty bill just to keep the lights on.
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