Commenting EEF Director General,
Martin Temple
, said:
“Together with the planning reforms government is putting in place the building blocks to ensure a competitive, diversified and secure long term supply of energy. Government should be applauded for setting out a balanced strategy which must include nuclear if we are to address security of supply and climate change objectives.
“It is now vital that a firm timetable is established to remove the barriers to private sector investment in low carbon sources of energy, especially nuclear new build. Government must also continue to encourage all sectors of the economy to improve their energy efficiency and pull their weight in reducing emissions.”
EEF also welcomed the fact government appears to have taken on board industry concerns about the Energy Performance Commitment [now titled the Carbon Reduction Commitment and an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for companies falling outside the EU ETS] by raising the annual electricity consumption threshold (1).
If the original lower threshold had remained, EEF had feared this would have captured a larger number of smaller and medium size firms whose ability to invest in energy efficiency might have been undermined by the scheme.
However, despite the welcome establishment of an Energy Technology Institute, EEF believes there is considerable scope for increasing public funding of energy-related R&D which has been consistently the lowest among G7 nations. Support for energy efficiency R&D has been particularly limited with the International Energy Agency reporting no public funding since 2001. Even the funding announced for the Energy Technology Institute, £600m over ten years or £60m a year, would still leave UK far behind all other G7 nations.
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Government has raised the threshold of annual electricity consumption from 3,000 MWh to 6,000 MWh
EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation is the representative voice of manufacturing in the UK with a federation of 11 regional Associations, UK Steel and ECIA, the Engineering Construction Industry Association. The EEF has a growing membership of almost 6,000 companies of all sizes, employing some 900,000 people from every sector of engineering, manufacturing, engineering construction and technology-based industries.