It is a high-risk strategy. In capitulating to “Big wind” and solar, the Big Six energy companies have no one to blame but themselves for the heightened political risk caused by rising electricity prices and the inevitable consumer backlash. Weather-dependent wind and solar power is inherently unreliable and high cost. In addition to subsidies, wind and solar need more grid infrastructure. When the wind blows and the sun shines, they swamp the grid with zero marginal cost electricity, forcing gas, coal and nuclear to reduce their output.

Lower prices and lower output demolish the investment case for building the gas-fired power stations the Government says are vital. These hidden costs are the real killer. As Amber Rudd, the energy and climate secretary, observed in her “smell the coffee speech” last November, “we now have an electricity system where no form of power generation, not even gas-fired power stations, can be built without government intervention”.