The National Energy System Operator (NESO), the body that runs the UK's energy infrastructure, has published an economics annex to its future energy scenarios finding that a pathway meeting the net-zero by 2050 goal would be the cheapest option for the country. Carbon Brief reported the findings on 11 December 2025. The scenarios themselves were published in July1.
NESO's "holistic transition" pathway would bring average savings of £36bn per year out to 2050 relative to "falling behind", a scenario in which the UK slows its efforts on climate change. That is around 1% of GDP, and stems mainly from lower fuel costs and reduced climate damages. NESO says the UK currently spends around 10% of GDP on its energy system, a figure expected to decline to around 5% by 2050 under all four scenarios1.
The annex states that the additional investment needed to stay on track for the climate goals would amount to around £30bn per year out to 2050, with a peak of as much as £60bn over the next decade. The largest extra investments would be in the power sector, followed by homes, such as installing electric heat pumps instead of gas boilers. NESO says it expects electric vehicles to be cheaper to buy than petrol cars from 20271.
On imports, NESO finds that climate efforts would materially reduce the UK's dependency on overseas gas, with imports falling to 78% below current levels by 2050 under "holistic transition". Under "falling behind", imports rise by 35% despite higher domestic production1.
"Our pathways cannot provide firm conclusions over the relative costs attached to the choices between pathways…We reiterate that the costs discussed here do not represent the cost of achieving net-zero emissions."
NESO also says that slowing climate action would generate "savings" of £14bn per year on average, some 0.4% of GDP, but only if climate damages are ignored. It states that this figure does not represent the cost of achieving net-zero and cannot be compared with comprehensive estimates such as the 0.2% of GDP total from the Climate Change Committee. NESO adds that electricity demand from data centres is around twice as high in "holistic transition", adding some £5bn a year in costs in 2050, and that most of the £14bn saving would be wiped out if fossil fuel prices are higher than expected, falling to £5bn a year1.
| Measure | Holistic transition | Falling behind |
|---|---|---|
| Average annual saving vs the other pathway | £36bn per year (about 1% of GDP) | £14bn per year (about 0.4% of GDP), if climate damages ignored |
| Gas imports by 2050 | 78% below current levels | 35% higher |
| Cost of a 2050 energy price shock | 0.3% of GDP | Remains high |
The scenarios apply to the island of Great Britain rather than the whole UK, because Northern Ireland's electricity system is part of a separate network covering the island of Ireland. NESO last published a similar exercise in 2020, with the results widely misreported. Carbon pricing already applied to power plants and other heavy industry under the UK's emissions trading system is excluded from running costs in the annex1.
Why it matters for households
The modelling concerns the whole energy system, not household bills directly, and no household-level cost figures have been reported. What it does set out is the direction of travel for the fuels and equipment homes rely on: less gas, more electricity, and a shift in spending from imported fuel to domestic infrastructure. For a household, energy independence is largely about how exposed its running costs are to imported gas prices. NESO's finding that imports fall sharply under the net-zero pathway, and that a 2050 price shock would cost 0.3% of GDP rather than the 1.8% added to national energy costs in 2022, speaks to that exposure1. The NESO annex also identifies homes as the second largest area of extra investment, after power, which indicates where the physical changes to housing stock sit in the plan. The wider national supply picture, including how much gas the country buys from abroad, is the context in which household bills are set.
What happens next
No dated next steps are set out in the reporting. NESO's future energy scenarios are published annually, and the economics annex accompanying them is not published in most years1.