If the state of the Scottish energy grid is comparable to mainland Europe, then the prices go up due to increasing cost of infrastructure.
Renewables are a lot cheaper per kWh, but require a substantialy higher up front cost in infrastructure due to their decentralized nature.
Before renewables, the electricity only ever flowed in one direction, from the power plant down to the consumers. A few centralised main powerlines could deliver most of that.
With the increase in renewables that suddenly isn’t true anymore. Smal villages often are net positive, we’ve reached a point where even the medium voltage grid of entire regions is net positiv and the energy has to be transported somewhere else, sometimes even outside the country.
All this requires substantially more powerlines (or at least thicker ones, so still new cables). But more importantly, devices to measure the current load of the grid at all times and modernized equipment that can remotely be operated to respond to variing load.
Not to say that we should stop building renewables. All this infrastructure will be needed eventually eather way, but at least in the short term, investments will be needed regardless.
No, there should never be any reason to connect these versions to the internet.
If you are talking about legacy software in a corporate setting, then a vm should do the trick 99% of the time. If that legacy software needs an internet connection (which is already questionable), then you bridge only the specific port it needs to the connected interface. If that doesn’t work either, then you get a separate PC explicitly for that software and disallow pretty much all other connections.
If you are talking about private use, then the only thing keeping you on a windows version older than 10 is your unwillingness to upgrade. Its understandable, but it doesn’t change the fact that these versions have massive security holes and shouldn’t be used anymore.