“There's absolutely no question of the lights going out,” the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, told the House of Commons this week. “There'll be no three-day working weeks or a throwback to the 1970s.”
When senior ministers are forced to give such reassurances, it’s usually a sign that trouble is ahead. With Britain’s economy already battered from COVID-19 and Brexit, the last thing it needs is another crisis – let alone one relating to something as vital as energy. But that is exactly what the country is facing.
In recent weeks gas prices have soared, with wholesale prices rising to more than three times the level they were at the start of the year. Analysts have attributed skyrocketing prices to a ‘perfect storm’ of factors, including depleted European stocks after a prolonged winter; delayed maintenance by domestic gasfield operators; lower gas supplies from Russia; and strong demand for liquefied natural gas in Asia and Latin America. This turbulence in global gas markets has been compounded by a fire on a major subsea electricity cable between the UK and France, which has slashed energy imports from continental Europe, and some of the lowest wind speeds since the 1960s, which has dramatically cut output from the UK's 11,000 wind turbines.
