The UK has spent an additional £75 billion on wholesale gas over the past two and a half years, new analysis from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) has revealed.
For context, the UK’s pre-crisis wholesale gas cost would usually amount to between £10-15 billion per year, but the ECIU found that the UK spent £105 billion, in total, since wholesale gas prices began to rise two and a half years ago.
The majority of this cost, the ECIU noted, accumulated after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022; since then, the UK has spent £85 billion on gas, an extra £60 billion.
Roughly £50 billion of this was spent buying gas from overseas, a trend that will continue with or without new gas licenses as the North Sea Transition Authority has confirmed that North Sea production will continue to decline.
Moreover, as gas prices are set largely by international markets, consumers still face higher prices in spite of UK gas production.
“Despite 1,000TWh of gas coming out of the North Sea since the crisis began, household bills still shot up. Prices are set internationally so more drilling won’t protect homes from high bills next time an international crisis comes along,” said Jess Ralston, energy analyst at the ECIU.
Therefore, the UK’s dependence on gas is forcing higher energy bills upon consumers; to illustrate this, the ECIU cited a 2022 report by the International Monetary Fund, which found that, since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK has become the country worst affected by the gas crisis in Western Europe.
This trend continues, as demonstrated by the January 2024 report published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which found that electricity prices in the UK increased by 19% year-on-year (YoY) in 2023 and doubled since 2019, with the country ranking amongst the highest for averages household electricity prices.

This leaves one avenue for cheaper energy: decreasing gas consumption in favour of renewables, whilst increasing the use of low-carbon tech such as heat pumps.
Earlier this month the ECIU released its ‘Cost of NOT Zero in 2023’ report, which revealed that the slow integration of low-carbon technologies, such as heat pumps, in UK homes cost the average household £2,100 last year.

“What would have helped is more British renewable energy and insulating homes. A lack of investment over the past decade and recent government u-turns on policies such as warm home standards for landlords is leaving households vulnerable to volatile prices with 13% of homes now in fuel poverty. The fact that domestic gas use has gone down points to houses making difficult decisions between eating and heating,” continues Ralston.
“The switch to heat pumps that run on electricity would also help, not least with the UK’s energy independence by reducing the amount of gas we need to buy from foreign suppliers. Here again, government appears to be dithering.”