As part of the UK Coalition Government’s drive to be ‘accountable’ to the electorate, all departments including the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) have published business plans.
DECC’s business plan sets out a new set of indicators, which the public can scrutinise against progress, including the number of installations of cavity wall and loft insulation, how many households are in fuel poverty, percentage of energy consumption from renewable sources and total emissions from the UK.
First on the list to be ticked off, is the monitoring of departmental energy consumption, which is now live online. Going forward, however, all departments including DECC have committed to cutting emissions 10% by next May.
Meanwhile, the Department’s activities over the next five years start the first Green Deal offers this December, at the same time as the Energy Security and Green Economy Bill is introduced in Parliament.
The formal Green Deal is slated to start in October 2012, according to the plan, with the first progress update on uptake of the offers in the following March.
The second priority for 2011 will be the Green Investment Bank, proposals for which will be published in May, followed by formal set up in 2012. The first update on funds invested by the Bank will be published in May 2013.
Meanwhile, the document also commits to an implementation plan for smart meter rollout next April, which is then slated to actually start in July 2012.
Next year will also see the implementation of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) in June, but the first major review of feed-in tariffs (FITs) will now stick to the original schedule of April 2013.
Final National Policy Statements, along with a white paper on the electricity market and a review of energy regulator Ofgem are also due next year in May.
A contract for the first carbon capture and demonstration project will have to wait until December, with a shortlist of the next round of demonstration projects not forthcoming until May 2012. Towards the end of that year will also see the publication of offshore grid development proposals.
In addition to DECC’s activities, the Department for Transport plans to publish the route for the proposed new high speed rail links next year, with legislation planned for 2013 before the final routes between Manchester and Leeds are finalised the following year.