Consultation events on simplifying the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme in Manchester on 16th May and London on 23rd May 2012
Government will be hosting two consultation events on simplifying the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. The consultation event in Manchester will be held on Wednesday 16th May at the Palace Hotel, Oxford Street, Manchester M60 7HA. The consultation event in London will be held on Wednesday 23rd May at Dexter House, No 2 Royal Mint Court, London EC3N 4QN.
This event will provide an opportunity for an exchange of views on Government’s simplification proposals on the CRC, which will help inform the final amendments to the scheme. The Minister of State for Climate Change, Gregory Barker will provide the closing speech at the London event. For further details please see the draft agenda for the event:
Participation in the event
There are still some places available at both events. To register you interest, please email CRC@decc.gsi.gov.uk by Tuesday 8th May and clearly state in the title “CRC Consultation event London / Manchester (delete as appropriate)”.
Please state whether you wish to attend the London or Manchester event and provide your name, email / contact details, job title, organisation and sector and indicate whether your organisation is a scheme participant (if so please include your CRC registration number).
Those who requested to attend prior to 2 May should have already received an acknowledgement and will receive further information shortly. If you have not received an acknowledgement, please email: CRC@decc.gsi.gov.uk to enquire. Please note that, if the consultation events are oversubscribed, DECC may have to limit attendance to ensure we have a good representative profile of the CRC community.
The Government is considering the simplification of the CRC in the light of experience since the scheme began in April 2010. In doing so, government will take into account feedback from stakeholders including:
- Optimising the projected energy savings attributable to the CRC scheme. Projected savings attributable to the CRC are outlined in Annex G of the June 2010 DECC Energy and emissions projections.
On 27 March 2012, Government published a consultation on simplifying the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. The consultation document includes proposals which aim to streamline and simplify the scheme to create a new leaner, simplified and refocused CRC. Government is seeking views from participants and other interested parties. The deadline for responses to the consultation is Monday 18th June 2012. Further details can be found on our consultation on simplifying the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme page.
These views will then inform amendments to the current legislation underpinning the scheme (see Legislation.gov.uk: The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Order 2010). Any formal legislative proposals would come into force through affirmative Orders in Council before registration for the second phase of the scheme begins in April 2013.
Review of Academies’ participation in the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme
Under existing CRC legislation, maintained schools in England are grouped with their funding local authority for the purposes of CRC participation. As part of Government’s CRC simplification process, local authorities have expressed concern the grouping of Academies with local authorities for the purposes of CRC participation is untenable.
The Government welcomes stakeholder feedback on the discussion options presented in the review, as well as alternative options that maintain the scheme’s emissions coverage.
Please send your comments to crc@decc.gsi.gov.uk or CRC Team, National Carbon Markets, Department of Energy and Climate Change, 3 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2AW, by 23 September 2011.
Simplifying The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme: Next Steps – 30 June 2011
As part of the informal dialogue with stakeholders on how to simplify the CRC, the Government today sets out its proposals for the future of the scheme. Responding to feedback received, we propose a number of simplifications to the CRC scheme which, subject to further analysis and formal consultation, will be implemented from Phase 2 onwards (where registration for Phase 2 begins in April 2013).
Amongst other simplifications the Government is proposing to:
- Reduce the number of fuels covered by the scheme
Under the current scheme businesses have to report on the emissions from 29 different fuels, and we propose reducing this to four: electricity, gas, kerosene and diesel for heating. This will cover over approximately 95% of emissions captured under the CRC come while significantly reducing the administration burden of the scheme.
- Move to fixed price allowance sales
Instead of establishing an emissions cap and holding annual auctions as proposed by the previous Administration we propose from the start of phase 2 in 2014 there should be two sales per year where the price of allowances is fixed. This would remove the need for businesses to come up with auctioning strategies and give price certainty to help investment decisions, A lower price in the first sale will incentivise good energy management and reward those who successfully forecast energy use.
- Simplify the organisational rules
Abolish the need for large businesses to participate in groups which do not reflect their natural structure.
- Make qualification processes easier
To make qualification a one step process instead of two. Previously businesses had to firstly prove they had a qualifying electricity meter and then declare they used a particular amount of electricity. This would be abolished in favour of participants just having to prove they use a certain amount of electricity from the qualifying meter.
- Reducing overlap with other schemes
Any CCA or EU ETS site would be automatically exempt from the CRC scheme.
We will continue to engage with stakeholders and welcome their views on the proposed simplified CRC scheme. We will publish draft legislative proposals in early 2012 for formal public consultation which will amend the existing CRC scheme.
This statement along with the proposals for the simplification are available here:
Stakeholder Event on simplification of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme – 3 March 2011
The Government held a stakeholder event on the simplification of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme on Thursday 3 March 2011.
This event provided an opportunity for an exchange of views about simplification, based on the papers published by DECC in January, to help inform future government proposals. The Minister of State for Climate Change, Gregory Barker, made the keynote speech at the event.
Participation in the event
Due to logistical constraints, we were not able to accommodate all requests for participation on this occasion so DECC tried to ensure there was a good representative profile of the CRC community at the event.
Please note: we are still in the early stages of the simplification process and those who were unsuccessful this time will be considered for future DECC CRC consultation events.
Priority areas for simplification
Feedback to date has led DECC to conclude that priority areas for simplification include:
Your views are sought on how these aspects of the CRC scheme could be simplified. To help inform your considerations, discussion papers aimed to stimulate an informal discussion on simplifying the aspects of the scheme are set out above.
These papers are not statements of government policy. Rather, they intend to provoke discussion amongst interested parties resulting in ideas and suggestions for changes and improvements to the CRC for subsequent consideration by government. We welcome initial written views on simplifying these aspects of the scheme by 11 March 2011 (send your responses to crc@decc.gsi.gov.uk or CRC Team, National Carbon Markets, Department of Energy and Climate Change, 3 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2AW).
If you do not want your response – including your name, contact details and any other personal information – to be publicly available, please say so clearly in writing when you send your response to the consultation. Please note, if your computer automatically includes a confidentiality disclaimer, that will not count as a confidentiality request.
Please explain why you need to keep details confidential. We will take your reasons into account if someone asks for this information under freedom of information legislation. But, because of the law, we cannot promise that we will always be able to keep those details confidential.
Further areas where simplification could be discussed
Feedback to date has also shown that a number of other aspects of the CRC could also be revisited. These include, but are not limited to:
- the nature of the reputational incentives of the scheme
- definition of transport used in the scheme
- treatment of public versus private sector participants
- energy threshold for qualification
- treatment of heat
- landlord/tenant relationships and responsibilities
If you have views about possible further simplification of the scheme in these or other areas, please write to DECC by 11 March (send your responses to crc@decc.gsi.gov.uk or CRC Team, National Carbon Markets, Department of Energy and Climate Change, 3 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2AW). Depending on the response to this request for views, DECC will consider publishing further discussion papers on other aspects of the scheme and hold associated sessions on these topics at future stakeholder events.
Guidance on sharing your ideas with government
The Government would welcome any views on how the CRC scheme could be simplified. However, if respondents make suggestions for changes to the scheme, it would be particularly helpful if the following aspects of any such suggestions were discussed in submissions to DECC:
- How your proposals would tackle the four barriers to the uptake of energy efficiency in large organisations (namely, insufficient financial drivers, uncertain reputational benefits of demonstrating leadership, split incentives between landlords and tenants and organisational inertia). The barriers to the uptake of energy efficiency measures are discussed in policy options papers and consultation documents which can be found on the Policy background page.
- How your proposals might affect the magnitude of the energy use coverage of the scheme
- How the energy efficiencies / emissions savings associated with your proposals could be verified / audited in a proportionate but effective manner.
An important note about the existing scheme
Although the Government has announced its proposal to simplify the CRC scheme, it is essential all participants continue to comply with the existing scheme, in full, as set out in the current legislation. The CRC remains a mandatory scheme and the Environment Agency and other administrators continue to provide support to participants with their CRC compliance. Organisations that fail to comply will be subject to enforcement action. Participants should continue to fully comply with the scheme and use the introductory phase to gain experience on reporting, complying and surrendering allowances in CRC.