UK infrastructure gaps leave businesses exposed to global energy shocks
26 May 2026
Interconnected global energy markets mean UK prices feel shocks even without direct imports from disrupted regions. Transmission network charges will rise 64% from April 2026, feeding into bills. John Haw, CEO of Fidelity Energy, says urgent investment in storage, grid capacity and resilience is necessary to avoid being forced into policy compromises.
Ongoing disruption across global energy markets is exposing how vulnerable UK businesses remain to international supply shocks.
The issue is no longer limited to short-term wholesale price spikes. Instead, repeated disruption linked to global conflict, fuel supply routes and import competition is revealing deeper weaknesses in the UK’s domestic energy resilience.
The UK’s exposure is frequently misunderstood. The UK does not rely heavily on Russian or Gulf gas directly, but that does not mean it is insulated. Energy is traded globally, and when supply routes tighten anywhere, countries compete for alternative cargoes. Prices move regardless of where the UK physically imports from.
The real exposure is not about which countries the UK imports from, it’s how dependent the UK remains on international markets overall. If disruption in the Strait of Hormuz pushes Asian buyers towards the same LNG cargoes the UK relies on, the market tightens and prices rise. Businesses feel that quickly, across transport, logistics, manufacturing and wider operating costs. Energy security is no longer an abstract policy issue. It is a business cost issue.
But geopolitical volatility is only part of the picture. Businesses are also absorbing the rising cost of the UK’s own domestic infrastructure, and many are not aware of how significantly this is already affecting their bills.
Transmission Network Use of System charges, which recover the cost of maintaining and developing the UK transmission system, are rising 64% for large energy users. For many businesses, non-commodity costs (network charges, distribution, balancing costs and policy levies) now represent a substantial share of delivered electricity costs, and that share is growing.
The mistake businesses make is assuming that when oil or gas prices fall, their energy bills follow. That is no longer how the market works. The grid is under growing pressure from electrification, EV charging, renewable integration and surging demand from data centres and AI infrastructure. That investment has to be paid for, and it feeds directly into what businesses see on their bills. Wholesale prices are no longer the main story.
There is also a broader point that doesn’t get discussed enough. Business energy in the UK has become one of the government’s most significant indirect tax collection mechanisms. Policy levies, environmental charges and network costs layered onto commercial bills mean businesses are effectively subsidising the energy transition and public finances simultaneously, and that burden falls hardest on the most energy-intensive industries. The government talks about supporting UK competitiveness, but continuing to treat business energy bills as a revenue stream works directly against that. It is a cost on UK plc that compounds every time there is external disruption, and it needs to be part of the conversation.
The UK needs to address both its immediate vulnerability and the underlying infrastructure gap, and that the two are connected.
The UK’s net energy import dependency stood at 43.8% in 2024, with oil and gas making up more than 90% of imports. When it comes to gas storage, the UK operates closer to a hand-to-mouth model than most of its European counterparts — capable of storing between 1.5 and 7 days of typical demand under normal conditions, and a maximum of 12 to 14 days at full capacity.
By contrast, several major European nations hold weeks of reserve. That gap is not an abstraction, it is the direct reason why tightening international supply chains translate so quickly into price pressure for UK businesses.
The electricity grid compounds the problem. Built for a centralised, fossil fuel-based system, it was not designed to carry the distributed, renewable-heavy generation mix it is increasingly being asked to support. The result is a growing mismatch between where clean power is generated and where it can actually be moved — meaning that at peak times, renewable energy is being released unused while gas plants are fired up to fill the gap elsewhere on the network.
This is the contradiction at the heart of the UK’s energy transition. We are building renewable capacity at pace, but the grid is not keeping up. At times of peak generation, clean power is being released unused simply because the infrastructure to move it does not exist. That is not an energy security strategy. It is an infrastructure failure, and businesses are paying for it through their bills.
The government is right to move away from new North Sea licences and accelerate cleaner energy. But generation alone is not enough. If renewable power cannot be stored or moved effectively, the UK still falls back on gas whenever the system is under pressure. And as long as gas remains the backstop, businesses remain exposed to international markets.
What the UK needs is not just more capacity. It is investment in storage, grid upgrades and the infrastructure that can actually move clean power to where it is needed. Without that, the transition stalls. And businesses continue absorbing the cost of a system that is not yet fit for purpose.
