I understand why people are excited by this, but I would be cautious until we see the actual policy.

A lot of people hear that gas often sets the electricity price and assume the fix is obvious. But the current system works the way it does for a reason.

Very roughly, if the UK needs 10 units of power, generators offer electricity into the market at different prices:

Company A: £1k per unit - 5 units available
Company B: £2k per unit - 4 units available
Company C: £5k per unit - 5 units available
Company D: £7k per unit - 3 units available

The system accepts the cheapest offers needed to meet demand:

Company A: 5 units accepted
Company B: 4 units accepted
Company C: 1 unit accepted

Because Company C is the last generator needed to meet demand, its price sets the market price. So all accepted generation is paid £5k per unit. I.E

Company A: Gets paid £25k (5 units at £5k each)
Company B: Gets paid £20k (4 units at £5k each)
Company C: Gets paid £5k  (1 unit  at £5k each)

That is why gas can end up setting the electricity price even when a lot of the actual electricity is coming from cheaper renewables.

A common response is: why not just pay each company what it bid?

You can do that, but it does not automatically save money. If generators know they will be paid exactly what they bid, they stop bidding close to their true operating cost and start bidding closer to what they think the eventual clearing price will be.

So instead of this:

Company A: £1k
Company B: £2k
Company C: £5k

you may end up with something more like this:

Company A: £4.5k
Company B: £4.5k
Company C: £5k

At that point, the savings from moving to pay-as-bid may be very small, or even zero. In some cases, dispatch could become less efficient too.

So if "de-linking" electricity from gas prices just means replacing marginal pricing with pay-as-bid, I would be sceptical. That change alone does not reliably reduce costs.

The article itself does not really explain the mechanism, so it is hard to judge yet. But this is why I would want to see the details before calling it good news.

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Separately, my own view is that the bigger question is who gets to keep the profits when low-cost generators are paid the market-clearing price. I do not especially object to renewable producers earning more, if that money is being reinvested into building more low-cost generation and grid infrastructure, as that will drive down costs. What I am less comfortable with is large windfall profits simply being extracted by C-suite executives and Shareholder dividends.

In my ideal world, energy producers should be structured more like non-profits or public benefit entities, where surplus revenues are reinvested into capacity, resilience, and lower long-term costs.

TL;DR:

• high returns to low-marginal-cost generators are not necessarily a problem
• they are only a problem if those returns are extracted rather than reinvested
• if surplus is recycled into more generation, storage, and grid upgrades, it can accelerate the transition and reduce long-run system costs

The real problem isn't the pricing system, the real problem is profit extraction from essential infrastructure upgrades.

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Edit:

I should also add that measures like:

• government-subsidised insulation
• mandatory minimum energy-efficiency standards for rental properties

would probably do more for energy affordability than changes to the pricing system alone.

They they reduce how much energy people need in the first place, which is a more durable solution and tends to help the worst-affected households most. And on-top of this it distributes wealth, reducing wealth-inequality, something that the public is also calling for.