A coalition of organisations across the energy sector is calling on the government to take action after an energy audit found that the efficiency of UK electricity supply has remained broadly unchanged since 2010.
The 2016 UK Energy Productivity Audit, led by the Association for Decentralised Energy (ADE), found that while the UK had saved £1.7 billion between 2010 and 2015 from investing in energy efficiency, supply efficiency had improved by just 2%.
Despite these savings from across the domestic, industrial and service sectors, the UK spent £140 billion on energy in 2015, equivalent to 7.6% of UK GDP and up 26% since 2005.
The coalition – including the likes of the Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE), the Energy Institute, Greenpeace and more – has concluded that the failure by government to provide sufficient energy productivity policies means the UK is not on track to meet its carbon commitments.
“Current renewable energy and energy efficiency policies are only able to take the UK around half way towards meeting the 2030 Carbon Budget, leaving a significant policy gap,” the audit states.
This has been caused by a number of changes to energy policy since the 2015 general election across all sectors.
This includes the ongoing process of carbon tax reform for the industrial, commercial and public sectors, which will see the removal of the Carbon Reduction Commitment and an increase in the Climate Change Levy.
While this is intended to simplify the regulatory regime, new efficiency support has been rejected as part of reforms, with the Energy Saving Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) requiring only an energy audit going forward, although this is likely to be expanded under the reforms.
The removal of the zero carbon standards for new homes and non-domestic buildings will do nothing to reduce emissions and so far, little evidence has emerged that the decision had the intended effect of increasing house-building levels.
Aside from the Energy Company Obligation, itself soon to be scaled down considerably, the government has also failed to provide any energy efficiency retrofit policy.
However, Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) for rented non-domestic properties are likely to ensure improvements are made to the commercial sector, with an estimated fifth of buildings required to increase their energy performance from 2018 onwards.
The coalition is therefore calling on the Department for Business, Energy and Industry Strategy to address this critical policy gap and use the government’s upcoming industrial strategy to prioritise helping businesses to make additional energy productivity investments and improvements.
The latest findings add yet more pressure on BEIS to deliver energy policy, with confidence in the government’s ability to meet long term climate targets at significantly low levels.
