25% of your electricity bill is down to costs associated with Net Zero.
False. For a typical household on an electricity-only tariff, environmental and social policy costs amount to 16% of the total price cap. Not all of these costs go towards environmental, or ‘Net Zero’, schemes.
40% of the recently announced energy price rise is due to costs associated with Net Zero.
False. Of the £111 increase to the energy price cap from April 2025, approximately 10% is accounted for by an increase in environmental and social scheme costs (or 22% of electricity-only bills)
A post shared on Facebook claims that “25% of your total electricity bill” and “40% of today’s energy price rise” are down to “Net Zero nonsense”.
While it’s not entirely clear what exactly this post is referencing, we’ve seen other claims about how much of an energy or electricity bill goes towards ‘Net Zero’ policies, which are based on the percentage of a typical energy bill that is spent on “government social and environmental schemes” (or “policy costs”).
These costs are also sometimes labelled “green levies”. They refer to contributions paid by consumers via larger energy suppliers that go towards various energy policies.
As we’ve previously explained, some of the money from these costs goes towards large-scale renewable energy projects, but they are also used to fund a range of other environmental and social policies, including the Warm Homes Discount.
So not all of these costs go towards “Net Zero” policies.
Even when looking at these policy costs as a whole, it’s not correct that they account for 25% of an electricity bill.
The energy regulator OFGEM confirmed to Full Fact that under the current price cap, for a typical household on an electricity-only tariff paying by direct debit, policy costs amount to £141.17—approximately 16% of the total price cap.
For a typical household using electricity and gas and paying by direct debit, policy costs account for approximately 11% of the total headline energy price cap.
The energy price cap is set to increase from April 2025, but the proportion of this which will be accounted for by policy costs will remain the same for both electricity and gas (11%), and electricity-only users (16%).
It’s also not true that these costs account for 40% of the forthcoming energy price cap increase.
From April 2025, the energy price cap for a typical household using electricity and gas and paying by direct debit will increase by £111. The increase in policy costs is £11, meaning that approximately 10% of the increase is accounted for by these costs.
And for a typical household using just electricity and paying by direct debit, the increase in policy costs accounts for approximately 22% of the upcoming £32.53 increase.
We’ve fact checked various misleading claims about energy prices. Claims like these can spread fast and far on social media, and are difficult to contain and correct.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because it’s not true that costs associated with ‘Net Zero’ policies account for 25% of an electricity bill, or 40% of the forthcoming energy price cap increase.
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