The Energy Management Alliance, which comprises key energy management companies and industry bodies providing professional energy management services to the public, commercial and industrial sectors, has welcomed the launch of the Energy Efficiency Strategy ‘The energy efficiency opportunity in the UK’ and the ‘Guide to financing energy efficiency in the public sector’ by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC).
Graham Meeks, director of the CHPA and a founding member of the Energy Management Alliance commented, “Energy efficiency is the key to building a sustainable energy policy that keeps customers’ bills under control and makes best use of increasingly scarce resources. DECC’s strategy is a crucial step forward in realising the full potential of energy efficiency in cutting the costs, driving productivity and freeing-up resources for growth across the breadth of the UK economy.
“The Energy Management Alliance has been working closely with DECC in helping to shape the Strategy, and we are delighted that energy performance contracting, public procurement and accelerating investment have been identified as priority areas. Members of the Alliance look forward to working with the government in tackling these issues and seeing the energy management industry continue to grow as a central part of the UK’s thriving green economy.
A balanced energy economy must see the demand side play a full part alongside present initiatives on energy supply.”
As highlighted by the Energy Management Alliance submission to the Energy Efficiency Deployment Office consultation, DECC recognise that there is a thriving energy efficiency market in the UK but it is yet to reach its full potential. The Energy Efficiency Strategy quantifies this potential as 196TWh of energy savings in 2020, with a reduction of around 11% over the business as usual baseline, and a reduction in carbon emissions of 41 MtCO2.
The Energy Management Alliance looks forward to working with government over the coming months in transposing the EU Energy Efficiency Directive and implementing the proposals contained within the Energy Efficiency Strategy. The EMA is recommending that government now focus on:
Energy Performance Contracting (EPC): Promoting this contractual model – an obligation to meet energy saving targets where the risk for achieving these savings is transferred to the private sector.
Public procurement: Building on the feedback and case studies provided by the Energy Management Alliance for the ‘Guide to financing energy efficiency in the public sector’, as well as recommendations in the Energy Efficiency Directive, further work should be undertaken to:
– Remove barriers to off-balance sheet (and third party) funding
– Promote Energy Performance Contracting
– Develop aspects of standardisation in the tender and contractual process (thereby reducing transaction costs and procurement timeframes) across the public sector
Accelerating investment in demand reduction and demand response: It is vital that the government puts in place measures to support investment in energy efficiency that have equivalent impact to supply side incentives.
