Gabriella Franklin debunks five common myths about renewables, storage and net zero.
The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report report ranked misinformation and disinformation among the most significant long-term threats to society, alongside climate and nature loss.
Climate misinformation involves inaccurate or outdated claims that spread without intent to deceive, often stemming from misunderstandings or misinterpretation of data. Disinformation, by contrast, is deliberately created to mislead audiences for political, financial or ideological purposes. Both distort public debate. Analysis by Carbon Brief shows that 2025 marked the first year in which UK newspaper editorials opposing climate action outnumbered those supporting it.
The energy transition involves costs and trade-offs with real redistributive consequences, all of which deserve careful scrutiny and analytical clarity. This edition of the PLG on ESG blog – the first of two instalments – busts five common claims often presented as definitive evidence-based arguments against renewables, storage, and net zero. Part two will tackle five more. Most of these claims, in practice, rely on incomplete data, outdated assumptions, or a confusion between short-term implementation hurdles and long-term system design.
The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risks Report report ranked misinformation and disinformation among the most significant long-term threats to society, alongside climate and nature loss.
Climate misinformation involves inaccurate or outdated claims that spread without intent to deceive, often stemming from misunderstandings or misinterpretation of data. Disinformation, by contrast, is deliberately created to mislead audiences for political, financial or ideological purposes. Both distort public debate. Analysis by Carbon Brief shows that 2025 marked the first year in which UK newspaper editorials opposing climate action outnumbered those supporting it.
The energy transition involves costs and trade-offs with real redistributive consequences, all of which deserve careful scrutiny and analytical clarity. This edition of the PLG on ESG blog – the first of two instalments – busts five common claims often presented as definitive evidence-based arguments against renewables, storage, and net zero. Part two will tackle five more. Most of these claims, in practice, rely on incomplete data, outdated assumptions, or a confusion between short-term implementation hurdles and long-term system design.
Claim 1: “Renewables are expensive, driving up energy bills”
The cost of generating electricity is often confused with the price households pay for it. On generation costs alone, renewables are now consistently the cheapest source of new power. Solar and wind costs have fallen by more than 80% since 2010, driven by technological advances, economies of scale and competitive supply chains. Recent analysis shows that solar and wind are the most affordable sources of new electricity in over 80% of the world, a finding echoed by the International Renewable Energy Agency.
In Britain, the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero (DESNZ) found that new solar generation now averages around £41 per megawatt hour, compared with close to £114 per megawatt hour for new gas power stations over their lifetime. In 2025, renewables supplied a record 47% of the UK’s electricity, compared with 28% from gas, however see here for live figures. Far from being inherently expensive, renewables are already undercutting fossil fuels on cost, insulating the UK economy from volatile gas prices, which surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine among other geopolitical crises.
Why bills are still high, and what renewables have to do with it
If renewable energy is so cheap, it’s reasonable to ask why household bills remain stubbornly high. The short answer is that it’s not the cost of renewables that is driving prices, but the way the electricity market sets them.
In the UK, electricity prices are set using a system called marginal pricing. This means the price everyone pays is determined by the most expensive source of electricity needed to meet demand at that moment. Cheaper sources like wind and solar are used first, but if gas-fired power stations are needed to top up supply, for example when there’s little wind is not or demand is high, gas sets the price for all electricity, including power generated from renewables.
Until the energy system is reformed and supported with more storage, grid upgrades and flexible technologies, marginal pricing based on natural gas will persist. Gas-fired power stations remain essential because they can be switched on quickly, but that flexibility comes at a price that consumers ultimately bear.
The implication is that high bills are not the result of having too much renewable energy, but of still relying on gas to set prices. Expanding renewables, alongside investment in the grid, more storage and technologies that reduce our dependence on gas, is key to breaking this link.
Claim 2: “Fracking in the UK would have lowered energy bills.”
As mentioned, gas prices in the UK are predominantly affected by global, not domestic, factors. The UK operates an open gas market, even if shale gas were produced domestically, it would be sold at prevailing market prices, not at a discounted rate for UK consumers.
Evidence also suggests UK shale gas would be too limited in scale to meet energy security goals. The British Geological Survey significantly revised down earlier estimates of recoverable shale gas in 2019, while a review by Warwick Business School found that UK shale production between 2020 and 2050 would meet only a modest share of cumulative demand and would mainly slow the decline of North Sea output rather than transform the energy system (LSE, 2022). Crucially, the review concluded that this would not amount to a UK “shale gas revolution”.
As the Office for Budget Responsibility has repeatedly warned, continued reliance on gas, whether imported or domestically produced, leaves households and public finances exposed to sharp global price shocks. In a joint warning to then Prime Minister Liz Truss, the Climate Change Committee and the National Infrastructure Commission stated that while greater domestic fossil fuel production may marginally improve energy security, the UK’s gas reserves, offshore or from shale, are “too small to impact meaningfully the prices faced by UK consumers”.
Claim 3: “Renewables are unreliable, when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow, the grid collapses”
Renewables are far more dependable than critics claim, and modern storage solutions make the grid resilient to variability. Solar continues to generate electricity even on cloudy days, typically around 10% of peak output, while wind is often strongest in winter when demand is highest.
Grid-scale batteries capture surplus power during periods of high wind or sunlight and release it when output dips, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. They also smooth out the irregularities in supply and demand on a sub-second scale. This helps keep our electricity system operating within safe parameters, a term called “grid stability.” Without this, we would be at far greater risk of brownouts and blackouts. Even before we get to this point, the other technologies which manage these irregularities are more costly than BESS, keeping prices elevated for all consumers. Combined with interconnectors, flexible demand management, and smarter grid systems, storage ensures a secure and balanced electricity supply. Research from Oxford University and Regen shows that the UK’s electricity demand could be met entirely with wind and solar if supported by adequate storage and flexibility measures.
Falling battery costs further strengthen reliability: Lithium-ion pack prices dropped 8% in 2025, following a 40% decline in 2024, while utility-scale systems are becoming increasingly cost-effective. With these tools, intermittency is no longer a barrier. Renewables can provide a stable, resilient foundation for the UK’s energy system.
Claim 4: “Net zero is expensive”
Recent media coverage has reignited concerns about the cost of net zero, often citing multi-trillion-pound figures as the “cost” of decarbonisation. However, much of this reporting stems from misunderstandings about how energy system modelling works, rather than from new evidence about policy failure.
Increasingly, energy economists stress the distinction between total energy system investment and the additional cost of reaching net zero. National Energy System Operator (NESO) analysis, for example, explicitly models future energy pathways to allow comparison between different scenarios, including those that do not meet climate targets. These pathways still involve substantial investment because energy infrastructure must be maintained and replaced regardless of climate policy.
When aggregated, headline numbers are presented without this context, they can give the false impression that all projected spending is caused by climate targets, rather than by the universal requirement to upgrade and maintain infrastructure that has accompanied the industrial age. NESO itself has warned against this interpretation, noting that its figures should not be read as the standalone “cost of net zero”, which in itself shows an awareness of the level of misinformation and disinformation.
This does not mean that the transition is free or that costs are evenly distributed, it means that serious discussion requires clarity about what is being compared: investment with decarbonisation versus the required operational investments without it, and short-term capital costs versus long-term operating savings. Without that distinction, public debate risks becoming detached from the underlying economics.
Claim 5: “Renewable energy harms wildlife and farmland”
Renewable energy projects can have local environmental impacts, and these should not be dismissed. Wind turbines do cause bird fatalities, but these numbers are extremely small compared with other human-related causes. For example, in the US, wind turbines are responsible for around 150,000 bird deaths per year, whereas road traffic and buildings collectively kill hundreds of millions of animals.
Certain vulnerable species, such as birds of prey, are at higher risk due to their flight patterns and foraging behaviour. However, these can be substantially reduced through careful siting, environmental assessments and mitigation measures. Scientific studies show that, while wind farms can have local impacts on wildlife, these are generally manageable, temporary, and reducible through regulation and planning.
Similarly, while other renewable infrastructure such as additional hardstanding and hydrology work can also alter land use and local ecosystems, these impacts are generally managed or offset through careful environmental design and measures such as Biodiversity Net Gain, ensuring that renewable projects often deliver a net positive effect on local biodiversity.
By contrast, fossil fuel extraction poses far greater and longer-lasting threats. Oil and gas development directly contributes to climate change, the largest long-term threat to ecosystems, and also causes chronic pollution, oil spills, habitat fragmentation, and severe underwater noise that disrupts whales and dolphins over vast areas. Between 600,000 and 800,000 birds died as a result of direct exposure to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
From this perspective, well-regulated renewable deployment is not only compatible with environmental protection, but a necessary component of it. The key issue is not whether renewables have impacts, but whether those impacts are proportionate, managed and outweighed by wider ecological benefits.
Conclusion
While renewables are not without impacts, the materials required to support technologies like wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries (lithium, cobalt, nickel, and other critical minerals) are mined in far lower volumes than fossil fuels and are increasingly recyclable. Unlike oil, gas, or coal, renewable energy is, as the name suggests, renewable. A source of energy that can be replenished and reused, rather than extracted and depleted.