Energy and Climate Change Committee - Draft Energy Bill: Pre-legislitive ScrutinyWritten evidence submitted by the Association for the Conservation of Energy
The Association for the Conservation of Energy was formed in 1981 by major companies active within the energy conservation industry, in order to encourage a positive national awareness of the needs for and benefits of energy conservation, to help establish a sensible and consistent national policy and programme, and to increase investment in all appropriate energy-saving measures.
The Government’s draft Bill to revolutionise the electricity market completely omits any references to energy efficiency or consumption reduction, let alone the negawatt concept so familiar throughout North America. This is despite endless commitments to seek to integrate the energy saving option into long-term supply planning.
At present the proposed electricity market reforms focus entirely upon creating a framework to ensure sufficient electricity generation is in place to deliver the government’s climate and energy security objectives. Hence the claim that £120/200 billion will need to be spent on new power stations this decade, particularly under government scenarios regarding the electrification of heat.
Energy Secretary Ed Davey has faced mounting criticism of the omission. Challenged in a Daily Telegraph interview (May 26) as to the reasons for excluding what he and ministerial colleagues repeatedly describe as the “cheapest and most ecologically sound” way of delivering energy security, he responded only that: “We are looking into that. We have not excluded it from the final Bill, but we haven’t found a way yet to do it.”
A commitment to examining thoroughly whether running more purposeful energy saving programmes can reduce the need for new power stations was made last October by the senior civil servant, Jonathan Brearley, speaking to the British Institute of Energy Economics He is director of Energy Strategy & Futures at the Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC).
He promised that, over the next months, there would be “strenuous consideration” of policy options designed to reduce overall demand. Speaking at a PRASEG workshop on April 23, DECC minister Greg Barker announced that “there is the technical potential to address up to 38 % of electricity demand set for 2030 , via energy efficiency measures.”
We accept that the final text of the proposed bill to change the electricity market will not be published until the autumn. Meanwhile the government is only admitting to “ currently reviewing the potential for incentivising further demand reduction in the electricity sector. This work will report over the summer, in time to fit legislative timetables, should it be required.”
It is now over thirty years since the House of Commons Select Committee on Energy first raised the question as to why public policy fails to compare investment options. Since then, innumerable Parliamentary energy and environment reports have reiterated this argument, without any substantive response from government. This inquiry should finally elicit that response.
June 2012