This article appears as part of the Winds of Change newsletter

There can be few in the UK who haven’t felt the blow of the energy crisis, triggered in 2022 by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That year, the International Monetary Fund calculated that the crisis was hitting UK household budgets harder than any country in western Europe.

Also in 2022, according to one study, a third of Scottish households were in fuel poverty, paying more than 10 percent of their income towards energy, many of them plunged there by that crisis.

Its impact is still felt. And, though prices have fallen since early 2023, typical bills under the current price cap will still be 40% higher than in winter 2021/22.

Meanwhile the risk of energy crisis has not gone away.

Today, the Energy Crisis Commission (ECC) issued a report that said that heavy reliance on gas for both heating and power is leaving the UK “critically vulnerable” to price spikes. It described how the UK, since it is so heavily reliant on gas for electricity and home heating, is dangerously under-prepared for, and at risk of another energy crisis.

The analysis found that British households and businesses were hit harder than those in many other European countries because of high dependence on gas for heating and power generation. The UK, it said, when ranked against EU countries, is “second most dependent on gas for heating, and fifth most dependent on gas for electricity”.

According to the ECC, we the household billpayers, have been paying the price for the slow pace of change in both reforming and transitioning the energy system........

© Herald Scotland