The £1.6m 'Cliff Edge': Is a Hidden Energy Charge About to Empty UK Salad Shelves?

On 1 April 2026, a big change in the way electricity network costs are charged is set to land right on the desks of England’s glasshouse growers. For an industry that already runs on tight margins — and that needs power for heat, light and CO₂ dosing to grow food through the winter — this isn’t a small tweak. Growers describe it as a cliff edge.

That is the headline number. The deeper story is what this cost shock does to domestic supply — and why growers say the policy design has left them exposed.

What’s actually rising — and why growers are alarmed

Standing charges are the fixed costs on an electricity bill that pay for being connected to the network, irrespective of how much power you use. In a protected cropping system, you can invest in efficiency, LEDs, heat recovery, even onsite generation — but you can’t “efficiency” your way out of a fixed daily network cost.

The change due from April links to the funding needed for grid upgrades and the push towards a lower-carbon energy system. Growers accept that the network needs investment. Their complaint is that the structure of the charges hits high-capacity connections hard — the sort of connections you need if you’re running hectares of glasshouse with lighting, pumps, ventilation and climate control.

Why England’s glasshouses say they’re being treated differently to “industry”

Here’s the point that really inflames the sector: growers argue that energy-intensive industries (steel, chemicals, cement and glass are typical examples) can receive support that softens the blow of network costs — while food producers can’t. Grower bodies, including the British Tomato Growers’ Association and the Cucumber and Pepper Growers’ Association, say protected horticulture is locked out largely because it doesn’t fit the right Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) categories — in other words, it isn’t treated as “manufacturing”, even when its energy intensity looks similar.

That matters because protected horticulture is not some niche sideline. When a domestic grower pauses expansion, England doesn’t just lose jobs — it risks losing a slice of food production capacity that’s difficult to rebuild quickly once it goes.

Thanet Earth, for instance, has 51.5 hectares (127 acres) of growing area. It expects to harvest around 750,000 snack peppers a week at peak season, running through to November. And it has just completed a seventh glasshouse, a £25m project — while simultaneously pausing plans for further expansion because the cost outlook has changed.

The uncomfortable food security arithmetic

Protected horticulture’s argument is simple: if you make year-round UK production less competitive, you get more imports.

The UK currently supplies only about 15–20% of domestic consumption of fresh produce such as tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, according to figures cited by growers. That means Britain already leans heavily on imports in winter and early spring.

So when growers warn that they may have to raise prices or even stop production, the knock-on effects aren’t limited to one farm gate:

And in a twist that will irritate many growers, Thanet Earth says it’s a net exporter of electricity, generating power onsite and exporting enough to supply around 35,000 homes, while still facing sharply rising fixed network costs.

Why this is landing as a “confidence shock”, not just a bill

Even if every grower could technically survive a single year of higher charges, what matters is whether investors and operators still back long-term plans.

Thanet Earth employs about 260 people, rising to as many as 900 at seasonal peaks, and it reported nearly £3m pre-tax profit on £164m of sales in the year to April 2025 in its most recent filed accounts. Those are not the figures of a business with endless spare cash to absorb new fixed costs year after year while still investing in new capacity.

The sector’s warning is that April’s jump turns planning into guesswork: if you can’t forecast your base network cost, you delay expansion, you defer upgrades, and the UK’s domestic share stagnates — even when there is consumer demand for British produce.

What growers say they want — and what ministers are saying back

Growers aren’t, in their words, asking for open-ended subsidies. They want “relief from the charges” — effectively, a reform to how eligibility for support is decided, so high-energy food production isn’t excluded by classification rules.

Government, for its part, has said horticulture will be supported as a priority growth sector through a new farming and food partnership board, and that grid investment will help bring more renewables online and reduce reliance on fossil fuels — ultimately lowering bills. It has also indicated it will look at which businesses qualify for existing support to ensure it reaches the most energy- and trade-intensive sectors.

That leaves a very tight practical question for the next few weeks: does anything change before 1 April, or do growers enter the 2026 season with their cost base reset upwards?