Utility Week

4 | 18TH - 24TH OCTOBER 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Seven days... The end for fracking? The government's imminent energy white paper is set to ignore fracking completely, promoting a gamut of renewable energies instead. West- minster insiders said that shale gas fracking was out of step with the move away from fossil fuels and the target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Activism by Extinction Rebellion and growing public concern about climate change have weakened the chances of an industry once expected to create 64,500 jobs. The Sunday Times UK set to miss 'net zero' by 2050 goal The UK will miss its new goal to cut carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 unless it takes "urgent" action to change consumer behaviour, such as regulation to make green sources of energy cheaper and a tax on frequent flyers, according to the first assessment of the target for the government's environmental advisory body. The report, commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change, said little had been done to tackle household consumption, which accounts for nearly three-quarters of global greenhouse gases. It pointed out that the 40 per cent reduction in emissions by the UK since 1990 was largely as a result of the decarbonisation of generation. FT Weekend Dyson may have to return EV cash Ministers could force Dyson to hand back £5 million in taxpayer cash a'er the company abandoned plans to develop an electric car. In 2016 the government granted the company £16 million in the expectation it would "secure £174 million of investment in the UK, creating 500 jobs, mostly in engineering". In the event, Dyson said it had drawn down only £5 million of this grant. Daily Telegraph In the media Climate change proposals take UK 'further and faster' T he government has set out to go "further and faster" to tackle climate change with a series of wide-ranging proposals published this week (15 October). The proposals were made in response to recommendations made by the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) earlier this year, namely that net zero be embedded across government, that policies to reduce emissions must be business-friendly, and that the public must be fully engaged. In a forward to the Leading on Clean Growth report, published as part of the response, energy secretary Andrea Leadsom said a new cabinet sub-committee on climate change could be introduced to strengthen cross- government efforts. The response included a consultation on proposals for energy storage technologies to be processed via the local planning process at all sizes, as opposed to via the national planning regime when above 50MW – a move welcomed by the Renewable Energy Associa- tion (REA).Frank Gordon, head of policy at the REA, said: "This proposal should significantly reduce pre-construction costs for larger energy storage projects." The proposals do not apply to pumped hydro storage. Meanwhile, the Department for Business, Energy and Indus- trial Strategy (BEIS) published the UK's first Transport Decar- bonisation Plan, to co-ordinate the action needed to end trans- port emissions by 2050. BEIS also proposed "dramati- cally" improving commercial buildings in the private rented sector, with businesses report- edly set to benefit from £1 billion in energy bill savings by 2030. Within this, a consultation on plans to improve the energy per- formance of rented commercial buildings has been announced. More details on how the UK will progress towards the 2050 net zero target will be announced in the National Infra- structure Strategy this autumn. • Appearing before the BEIS committee earlier this week, Leadsom announced the long- awaited Energy White Paper could now be expected in the first quarter of 2020. AJ "The urgent need to reduce our emissions is the starting point for the Green Industrial Revolution that we will unleash" Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn pledges radical climate change targets should his party win power, but stops short of net zero by 2030. STORY BY NUMBERS New grid charges National Grid ESO has proposed overhauling the transmission charging zones for generators after concerns tariffs are becom- ing unstable and unpredictable. 27 Current number of charging zones in Britain, with generators facing different use charges in each. 50 New number of zones under RIIO2. £1/kW Limit for the marginal cost of connecting a new asset across a zone, leading to a rise in the number of zones. 14 A code modi- fication would permanently align the zones with the 14 licence areas of the distribution networks.

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