Draughty homes| Asia Global: the energy

Telegraph | Before we could enjoy the winter break, with those delicious worries over balancing family, friends, presents, food and finances, the energy companies played unfair by unwrapping a price hike that sent the average household energy bill over £1,300.

So why didn’t the Government provide some New Year cheer by clamping down on an industry which overcharges us users by an estimated £3.7bn a year? Instead it crumbled under the bullying from the energy companies – who refuse to honour their promise to cut the number of the draft-ridden homes.

Who are the biggest gainers from our remaining a nation which leaks money from every domestic orifice? It is of course the energy companies, who are more than happy to keep selling us something we continue to waste. Unlike Germany, which aims to reduce its energy use dramatically, we are planning for wasteful growth. We are accepting a future of hard-earned incomes being eaten up by energy bills, as even more people fall into fuel poverty and thousands of elderly people continue to needlessly live and die in cold homes.

Asked if the big six were right to blame the “green levies” for the latest price hike, our Mayor of London, Boris Johnson retorted: “I think they are right”. He clearly hadn’t considered that cutting the Energy Company Obligation means his own home insulation ambitions for London are now unlikely to be met. Londoners will go cold thanks to an incompetent mayor.

The other side of this debate is energy supply and the looming energy crisis. Our unhealthy addiction and dependence on imported gas, added to the lack of commitment and coherency towards developing solar/wind/wave/tidal sourced renewable energy, is taking us ever further from long-term energy security. Germany already generates over a quarter of its electricity from wind and solar and this is set to increase substantially. Recently on a windy day here in the UK, 17 per cent of our energy needs came from wind turbines. However, a fundamental difference between the UK and Germany is the Germans' commitment to renewables coupled with high levels of public support.

This is because more than half of the renewable energy generated is locally owned so that local people benefit from lower bills. Not here. Rather than planning ahead with logic and efficiency, and a touch of fear about the onrush of climate change, we have to put up with an Anglo-Saxon laissez faire approach that is content for our leaky homes (the worst in Europe) to remain unfixed.

The German model provides an alternative vision to the Government’s and Mayor of London’s push for nuclear and fracking, both of which offer few benefits but pose a nightmare of environmental challenges that future generations will have to mop up. Merry Christmas everyone.