According to Miliband, "there can be no energy security while we are so dependent on fossil fuels.”
March 17, 2026
The UK government is centring solar generation in its push for energy security in response to price shocks caused by conflict in the Middle East.
On 15 March, the energy secretary Ed Miliband outlined a package of measures to go “further and faster” in the pursuit of national energy security. These measures aim to accelerate already-existing plans for rolling out renewables.
The interventions are:
Bringing forward the next Contracts for Difference (CfD) allocation round (AR8), to be held in July this year
To speed the approval of ‘plug-in solar’ for the UK domestic market
Apply learnings from the Fingleton Review (which addressed how to speed up the development of nuclear power stations) to other infrastructure, such as renewables
The roll-out of the Warm Homes Plan, which will provide grants and interest-free loans for solar power, batteries and other home energy upgrades, will also be accelerated.
Related:EV charging and solar installation among new apprenticeship types in UK’s £1 billion employment drive
The seventh allocation round (AR7) of the government’s flagship CfD scheme concluded just last month. It secured 4.9GW of solar and 13.3GW renewable generation capacity in total, the largest ever round. 
According to Miliband, bringing forward the next renewables auction will “[give] certainty to clean energy investors”.
The support scheme provides financial security for renewables and, in turn, makes generation projects more attractive to investors. 
Miliband also said: “Global events demonstrate there’s not a moment to waste in our drive for clean power because there can be no energy security while we are so dependent on fossil fuels.”
The fallout of US-Israeli strikes in Iran could affect the UK’s energy market because of the nation’s reliance on gas-powered generation. Gas prices, set on the international level, have surged, and many are drawing parallels to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which triggered the energy crisis from which domestic and industrial energy prices are still recovering.
The UK energy market uses marginal pricing, which prices energy at the cost of the most expensive unit at any one time, most often gas. The amount of gas in the energy system was why the Russia-Ukraine energy crisis was so harshly felt in the UK.
Last week, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) published analysis finding that the total cost to the UK of transitioning to Net Zero by 2050 would be less than a single fossil fuel price shock like the energy crisis of 2022.
More renewable energy coming into the market would push gas out, meaning that prices would fall. An in-depth explanation of this is given by Simon Evans at Carbon Brief. 
Related:Impact of Middle East conflict on UK energy prices: Will CP2030 prevent another energy crisis?
Of the measures announced, trade body for the solar industry Solar Energy UK (SEUK) said that “unexpectedly” setting AR8 for July 2026 “will have the biggest impact” and help push “expensive” natural gas off the grid to “cut bills for us all”.
While wholesale market prices go up, a material way for consumers and businesses to reduce their energy costs is through small-scale solar PV. Homeowners with rooftop PV panels see significant decreases in their energy bills, particularly if coupled with battery energy storage. 
The government’s Great British Energy company has funded rooftop solar installations for public buildings in the UK as a way of reducing the strain of energy bills for schools and hospitals.
To make the solution more widely available, particularly to those living in properties where conventional rooftop installations are not possible, and at a lower cost, so-called plug-in panels will be sold in supermarkets, the government said.
One of the actions set out in the UK Solar Roadmap was to investigate the safety of the technology, which was banned in the UK but widely used in other countries, including Germany and the Netherlands. 
Related:Octopus Energy to invest £740 million in Californian clean energy
SEUK caveated that the savings available from the technology are smaller than those of traditional installations. 
All the same, the chief executive of SEUK, Chris Hewett, said he is “delighted to see that solar energy will be put at the heart of the government’s response,” describing the technology as “the fastest and cheapest solution to rising energy bills, at the smallest and largest scales”.
The government-commissioned Nuclear Regulatory Review by economist John Fingleton was published in November 2025. It found that an ‘overly complex’ and ‘bureaucratic’ system that favoured process over safe outcomes was holding back the nuclear industry.
At the end of last week, the government published plans to implement the findings of the review to improve efficiency and speed rollout of nuclear power in the UK. Miliband’s assertion since then has been that the same practice can be applied to other major infrastructure.
Alongside the measures for solar, the government said it is working with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to step up monitoring of the fuel sector to ensure businesses don’t take advantage of surging oil prices to price gouge customers. 
The increased cost of refuelling internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles has seen consumers warned to drive as little as possible, also prompting the electric vehicle (EV) industry to point out the relative insulation from price shocks that driving an EV offers.
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Molly Green
Senior Reporter, Informa
Molly joined the team in 2024 and has led coverage on the UK sites. Now shifting to a more global view, Molly is interested in how legislation shapes market dynamics, covering the intersection of policy design, investment patterns, and energy transition pathways. 
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