Energy volatility has once again become a boardroom issue.
After months of geopolitical disruption, businesses across the UK are being confronted with an uncomfortable reality: the cost of energy is influenced by events taking place thousands of miles away, often with very little warning.
The latest analysis from the Financial Times highlights a particularly striking development. Crude oil prices have retreated from their wartime highs, yet the cost of refined fuels such as diesel remains exceptionally elevated.
Diesel is now trading at a premium of around $70 per barrel above crude oil, according to the Financial Times. Historically, that premium has averaged closer to $20 per barrel.
For businesses dependent on transport, logistics, manufacturing, warehousing, refrigeration or other energy-intensive operations, this is another reminder that energy resilience is becoming just as important as energy price.
The price of war extends far beyond the battlefield
The human cost of conflict must always come first. Lives lost, communities displaced and infrastructure destroyed cannot be reduced to movements on a commodity chart.
There is also an environmental cost.
Damage to energy infrastructure, disrupted shipping routes, longer freight journeys, emergency changes to supply chains and greater reliance on alternative fossil fuel sources can all increase the environmental footprint associated with keeping the global economy moving.
And then there is the economic cost.
The current disruption to global energy markets illustrates how quickly geopolitical instability can work its way through international supply chains and ultimately reach businesses and consumers.
The Financial Times reports that refinery disruption across the Middle East, Ukrainian attacks on Russian refining infrastructure and restrictions on Chinese fuel exports have contributed to a shortage of refining capacity. Even as constraints on crude supplies have begun to ease, the availability of refined products remains restricted.
The result is an unusual disconnect.
Crude can fall while the fuel businesses actually use remains expensive.
Diesel has become significantly more expensive relative to crude
This is particularly apparent in diesel.
The gap between the cost of crude oil and the cost of refined diesel has climbed to levels far above its historical norm. The FT reports a diesel premium of approximately $70 per barrel, compared with the longer-term average of roughly $20.
This reflects a wider structural problem. Producing more crude oil does not automatically solve shortages in refined products if sufficient refining capacity is unavailable.
It has also created extraordinary margins for some oil companies.
Following strong earnings from the sector, US President Donald Trump publicly criticised ExxonMobil and Chevron, saying the companies were making “too much money” and calling for lower prices for consumers. Reuters reported the comments following particularly strong earnings from the two oil majors.
The point for UK businesses is not the politics surrounding those remarks. It is the underlying exposure they reveal.
Businesses purchasing fossil fuels remain connected to a global market shaped by refinery capacity, international conflict, shipping routes, sanctions, commodity trading and geopolitical decisions over which they have almost no control.
UK drivers and businesses are already feeling the impact
The pressure has also been visible at UK forecourts.
The Competition and Markets Authority found that increases in wholesale prices were the primary reason for higher UK pump prices during the Middle East conflict. Its analysis also identified considerable differences depending on where fuel was purchased.
Using UK Fuel Finder data, the CMA found that between 11 March and 13 April 2026:
| Outlet comparison | Diesel price difference |
|---|---|
| Motorway vs non-motorway | Up to 17p per litre more |
| Non-supermarket vs supermarket | Up to 11p per litre more |
| Potential difference on a 55-litre motorway fill | More than £9 |
| Potential difference on a 55-litre supermarket comparison | Almost £6 |
The CMA concluded that supermarkets remained the cheapest fuel retailers on average, while motorway service stations remained the most expensive.
For a private motorist, those differences are noticeable.
For businesses operating fleets, distribution networks or energy-intensive facilities, repeated across hundreds or thousands of journeys and operating hours, energy volatility can become a significant commercial risk.
Meanwhile, something very different is happening on Britain’s electricity grid
Against that backdrop, the changing composition of Britain’s electricity supply becomes particularly interesting.
At 10:20am on 7 August 2026, live Great Britain grid data showed renewables generating approximately:
16.07GW, representing 55.1% of demand.
Within that:
Solar: 8.72GW, or 29.9%
Wind: 7.16GW, or 24.6%
Hydro: 0.19GW, or 0.7%
Gas-fired generation, by comparison, stood at approximately:
3.27GW, or 11.2%.
Source: National Grid: Live, accessed 7 August 2026.
It is a snapshot rather than an annual average, and grid conditions change continuously. But it demonstrates something significant.
Renewable generation is no longer a peripheral part of Britain’s energy system.
At that moment, solar alone was producing more than twice as much electricity as gas.
And July had already delivered another milestone. Solar supplied a record 14.4% of Great Britain’s electricity across the entire month, beating the previous monthly record of 12.4%.
The economics of renewable energy are changing too
The argument for renewable energy is no longer based solely on carbon reduction.
It is increasingly an economic argument.
The International Renewable Energy Agency’s latest global cost analysis found that more than 90% of utility-scale renewable projects commissioned during 2025 produced electricity more cheaply than the cheapest new fossil-fuel alternative available in their respective markets.
Global average generation costs during 2025 stood at approximately:
| Technology | Global average generation cost |
|---|---|
| Onshore wind | $33/MWh |
| Solar PV | $44/MWh |
| Hydropower | $62/MWh |
| Offshore wind | $78/MWh |
IRENA estimates renewable generation avoided approximately $480 billion in fossil-fuel costs during 2025, alongside approximately 8.4 gigatonnes of CO₂ emissions.
The UK Government’s own 2025 Electricity Generation Costs report similarly assesses technologies through their lifetime cost of building, operating and ultimately decommissioning generation assets, reflecting the growing importance of looking beyond today’s spot energy price.
There is an important distinction here. Levelised generation costs are not the same thing as the final price appearing on a business electricity bill. Grid infrastructure, balancing, financing, network charges and other system costs still matter.
But the underlying economics increasingly favour renewable generation.
From energy cost to energy control
This is where the conversation becomes particularly relevant for commercial and industrial businesses.
Installing renewable energy infrastructure does not isolate an organisation completely from international energy markets.
But it can change the proportion of its energy requirement that must be purchased from those markets.
A manufacturer generating electricity from rooftop or ground-mounted solar, for example, can consume a proportion of that electricity directly on site.
Add battery storage and energy monitoring, and the organisation gains additional options around when electricity is generated, stored, purchased and consumed.
Combine those technologies with intelligent energy procurement and the conversation begins to move beyond simply asking:
“What is our energy tariff?”
towards:
“How much control do we have over our energy?”
That is a fundamentally different strategic question.
Energy resilience is becoming a competitive advantage
Nobody can reliably predict the next geopolitical shock.
Businesses cannot control conflicts in the Middle East, refinery outages, international shipping routes, sanctions, commodity markets or the decisions of major oil-producing nations.
They can, however, examine how exposed their operations are to them.
For organisations with substantial energy consumption, renewable infrastructure can increasingly be viewed as a form of risk management as much as a sustainability investment.
Solar PV, battery storage, voltage optimisation, energy monitoring and intelligent procurement can form part of a broader strategy designed to reduce unnecessary consumption, increase onsite generation and improve long-term visibility over energy costs.
The events of 2026 have once again demonstrated the fragility of global fossil-fuel markets.
At the same time, Britain’s electricity grid is demonstrating just how rapidly the alternative is developing.
When renewables can supply 55.1% of demand at a given moment, with solar alone contributing almost 30%, the question facing businesses is increasingly moving beyond the viability of renewable energy.
It is becoming a question of how much exposure to volatile external energy markets they are prepared to retain.
Building a more resilient energy strategy
At Olympus Power, we help commercial and industrial organisations understand their energy requirements and identify the technologies that make commercial and operational sense for their sites.
From solar PV and battery storage to voltage optimisation, energy monitoring and procurement, our approach looks at the wider energy picture rather than treating individual technologies in isolation.
Because reducing carbon remains important.
But in an increasingly volatile world, reducing exposure, improving resilience and taking greater control of energy are becoming equally important.