Britain is facing an unprecedented energy supply crisis thanks to its growing dependency on “intermittent” renewable energy, a top official at the country’s electricity and gas regulator has warned.

Andrew Wright, a senior partner at Ofgem, told a recent conference that some households would have to pay more just to keep the lights on while others “sit in the dark” due to lack of electricity.

Thanks to the closure of coal mines and the decline of fossil fuel generators, Britain has lost fuel capacity, meaning there is “much less flexibility” in supply.

He warned that in future richer customers may be able to pay for the better, more reliable service while poorer people have their energy supply rationed.

“At the moment everyone has the same network – with some difference between rural and urban – but this is changing and these changes will produce some choices for society,” he said.

“We are currently all paying broadly the same price but we could be moving away from that and there will be some new features in the market which may see some choose to pay for a higher level of reliability.

“One household may be sitting with their lights on, charging their Tesla electric car, while someone else will be sitting in the dark.”

The Telegraph reports that he laid the blame for this scenario on renewable energy.

“The system we are all familiar with has some redundancy built into it,” he said. “It was pretty straightforward and there was a supply margin, but increasing intermittency from renewable energy is producing profound changes to this system.

“We now have much less flexibility with the loss of fossil fuel capacity. Coal has been important, but this is disappearing.”

Breitbart reported in April how, since the European Union (EU) adopted its emissions trading scheme – which has seen an increase in renewable energy – average energy prices have risen by 63 per cent.

In Germany, rates rose by 78 per cent between 2005 and 2014, while in the UK they rose by 133 per cent.