A thinker urged that natural gas power plants in the UK should be nationalized to prevent their owners from "ransom".

According to a report from Common Wealth, the country's reduced fossil fuel power plants are already mature, as ministers aim to reduce gas consumption to just 5% of the power system by 2030.

ThinkTank added that returning plants to public control also prevents owners from 100 times the normal market interest rate when supply of renewable energy generation is short.

"Private gas power plants leverage the unique market power position of the 'balance mechanism', making grid ransoms and harshly attracting money to supply energy in a short time," it said.

It added: “British families are effectively transferring their wealth to private equity funds owned by billionaires and even foreign governments.”

The guardian revealed in January that nearly £18 million was paid to two power plants for several hours in the cold detachment, which coincided with the production of low-wind power supplies.

The German state-owned Uniper has earned £100.3 million from grid operators at its dock gas plant in North Wales, while the Rye House gas-burning power station (just north north of London, owned by private equity-backed commodity traders, the station received nearly £7.5 million.

The companies said at the time that they made substantial investments in factories throughout the year to ensure protection of the UK's power systems on rare days when needed.

Paul Morozzo, senior activist at UK GreenPeace, said: “Given the government’s goal is to almost completely clean the power system by 2030 – with only strategic gas reserves – putting it into public ownership is one way to avoid these companies’ excessive rents.

“The sooner the government stops such unfair profits, the sooner the bill can be lowered.”

The common wealth of designing public ownership models calls on the government to create strategic gas station reserves to operate only as the last resort during high electricity demand.

Then, as the UK moves its power system from fossil fuels to the end of the decade, the plants may be damaged.

"By 2030, our clean capacity mission will replace our reliance on the unstable fossil fuel market with clean, indigenous power controlled by the UK - the best way to protect bill payers and increase our energy independence," a government spokesman said.