Britain will need up to £240bn of net zero upgrades
Britain will need up to £240bn of net zero upgrades
Jonathan LeakeFri, June 19, 2026 at 6:22 PM UTC
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Britain's electricity network will require up to £240bn of upgrades to support clean power targets, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has admitted.
In new estimates released by the Government, the cost of building new pylons and power lines will skyrocket in the next 24 years to achieve the Government's net zero ambitions.
The energy department has already warned that grid upgrades will cost £80bn by 2030.
However, the latest forecasts indicate that this is just the start of a much larger upgrade programme – with households poised to foot the bill.
The costs of grid expansion are loaded onto consumers' energy bills to pay for upgrades carried out by the UK's monopoly transmission operators: National Grid, SSE and Scottish Power.
This includes building new pylons across the country to transport electricity generated by renewables, including rural wind and solar farms.
The scale of the upgrades was revealed at a conference this month, attended by officials from DESNZ.
'Demand expected to double'
Will Lochhead, a deputy director of DESNZ, told delegates: "The electricity grid we rely on today was largely built in the 1960s and was never designed for the scale of home-grown energy generation now being deployed, or the future levels of electricity demand."
He added: "As we electrify transport, heating, industry and other sectors, electricity demand is expected to more than double by 2050.
"Meeting this demand would require between £100-240bn of investment in the electricity network by 2050."
He cited DESNZ analysis suggesting that annual electricity demand will rise 10pc by 2030, 50pc by 2035 and more than 100pc by 2050, driven by the increased use of clean power technology such as electric cars and heat pumps.
However, such predictions are controversial. For example, the UK's policy of spending billions of pounds on upgrading and expanding the grid is based on forecasts from 2005 predicting inexorable growth in UK power demand.
These forecasts have since proven to be wrong after soaring energy prices decimated British industry, forcing factories to close and reducing nationwide energy demand.
The UK's average electricity demand was 40 gigawatts (GW) in 2025, but this has since fallen to 31GW. The UK recently recorded its lowest ever demand of just 12GW.
Despite this, DESNZ and the National Grid still expect a surge in electricity demand in the coming years as part of their efforts to decarbonise the grid.
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Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by moving the country away from fossil fuels.
David Adkins, at the National Grid, said this week that power demand could soon be even greater than predicted by DESNZ because of the growth of AI.
"The general [transmission] investment plans across Great Britain total £77bn by 2031 with National Grid delivering about £35bn of that," he said.
"We believe there's a continued need for similar scale of investment over the next period."
Miliband's focus on net zero
Mr Adkins said the cost of post-2030 grid expansion was being reviewed by the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the body responsible for keeping the lights on, as part of its forthcoming Centralised Strategic Network Plan.
A draft version is expected within weeks and that is expected to reinforce plans to expand electricity generation and grid capacity.
Neso has already published a "Beyond 2030" plan recommending that the UK spend £58bn on new cabling and substations for new offshore wind farms. This would be in addition to the £77bn cited by Mr Adkins.
Mr Miliband's focus on net zero, despite the costs it is imposing on UK households and businesses, has become politically contentious.
Ed Miliband has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by moving the country away from fossil fuels - John Breslin/10 Downing Street/DESNZ
Before the 2024 election, the main UK political parties largely agreed on climate change and the policies needed to tackle it.
That consensus has now collapsed in the face of rising concern about surging household energy costs, along with the destruction of energy-intensive industry.
Industry now accounts for just 8pc of UK GDP – about a third of the proportion in 2005.
Richard Tice, the Reform UK energy spokesman, said: "These vast multibillion costs add to domestic and business energy bills, for no benefit.
"We did not have these extra costs pre-net zero and everyone had cheaper energy and more money in our pocket. We have been sold a dud."
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, said: "The reason why electricity demand is falling is because our electricity is too expensive.
"The costs are eye-watering. We need to stop building wind farms at the tip top of Scotland that we can't get the power out of and focus on making electricity as cheap as possible."
The Government was contacted for comment.
Source: “AOL Money”
