Inflation has been a big concern for many households over the past few years. While price rises have fallen recently to a more sustainable rate, there is the opportunity to significantly reduce the influence of one major driver of cost pressures for households – energy.

The World Energy Outlook reported that energy price spikes drove about one-third of inflation between 2021 and 2023 – not due to clean energy but because of oil, coal, and gas price surges after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Further back, in the 1970s, the two oil price shocks emanating from the Middle East underpinned a substantial rise in inflation that caused major pain to households and disrupted entire economies.