The United Kingdom independently audits its public finances through the Office for Budget Responsibility. It has no equivalent independent audit of the physical energy system on which those finances ultimately rest.
The National Energy Audit is being established to supply that missing account: an annual, independent assessment of the UK's energy system in physical units, published to the same calendar as the Budget.
In formation, 2026 · first edition aligned to the fiscal cycleEnergy policy rests on physical claims — how much energy the system delivers, what it truly costs once backup, storage and the grid are counted, how fast domestic reserves are depleting, how much we import, and whether stated targets are being met. These claims are rarely set out, in one place, in physical units, by anyone outside the bodies whose policy is being judged.
The Audit measures them. It reports what the energy system physically delivers and how stated policy is performing against its own targets and against physical reality. It is built to be read by a Member of Parliament in ten minutes and reproduced by an engineer in an afternoon.
Anchored to total final energy — not electricity alone, which is only about a fifth of the energy the country uses. Each year the Audit will report a set of standing accounts:
Published in two tiers, on the model used for major scientific assessments: a short Summary for Leaders over a full Technical Report, with every headline traceable to the working beneath it — plus a permanent online ledger tracking official claims against outturn.
An audit is only worth the independence behind it. Ours is guaranteed by structure, and the rules are fixed in a public Terms of Reference before any number is run. It is being established as an independent, non-commercial body, governed by that document, with its panel and funding named in every edition.
Read the Terms of Reference (PDF) →
Members who support the energy transition sit alongside those sceptical of current policy. Findings must be defensible to all of them.
Any member may record a disagreement, printed in the report beside the finding. Disagreement is shown, not suppressed.
Boundaries, assumptions and sources are published and frozen before the figures are run, and peer-reviewed — including by people who expect a different answer.
Every figure will carry two independent sources and a workbook anyone can re-run.
No money from parties with a financial stake in the result. All funding disclosed in every edition.
Any body whose claim is assessed will be offered sight of the finding and a reply, published alongside.
The Audit is being built by people prepared to do the measurement work to a standard that survives scrutiny. If you have the expertise to make one of these accounts unimpeachable — or to challenge it — we would like to hear from you. Sceptics and supporters of current policy are equally welcome; rigour is the only test.