In case you missed it, here's a copy of the letter to the Sunday Times from WWF-UK, Good Energy and other key renewables campaigners.

Last week’s report “Ditching expensive wind farms ‘will save £34 billion’ ” (News), based on an unpublished report by KPMG, overlooked several points about energy bills and the impact of renewable energy on them.

The “steep price hikes” in energy bills to which the article referred have been mainly driven by increases in global gas prices. In particular, the price of gas for electricity production rose by 84% between 2004 and 2009. The UK relies heavily on gas — for nearly half our electricity and 80% of home heating. According to Ofgem, the cost of support for renewables represents about only £20 of the average annual energy bill, a figure dwarfed by that for gas. Given our vulnerability to gas prices, it is hard to understand the logic of increasing dependence on gas further.

According to your article, KPMG appears to suggest that, rather than use renewables to meet our carbon targets, we should switch from coal to more gas and nuclear. Gas may have lower carbon emissions than coal, but it is not low carbon and will not be sufficient to deliver the tougher carbon reductions to which the country is committed beyond 2020.

Given that the report is said to “take a clinical economist’s view”, it is surprising that the authors do not mention that by providing investment certainty to the renewables sector today, the UK could become an industrial leader in renewable technologies and substantially reduce their costs.

David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK, Juliet Davenport, founder of Good Energy, Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity, Ben Caldecott, head of European policy at Climate Change Capital