The UK government should incentivise electricity-saving measures in the upcoming Energy Bill to cut customers’ bills, according to a new report from Green Alliance and WWF-UK.
With the introduction of incentives to cut electricity demand during the switch to a low-carbon market, the government could wipe £10.9bn off its annual energy bill by 2030.
The report highlights government research which shows that effective measures to reduce electricity use would result in avoiding 40% of power demand by 2030 – equivalent to the output of 15 nuclear power plants.
The research also indicates that current policies to tackle energy demand could only deliver a third of the UK’s electricity saving potential by 2030.
Green Alliance has looked at three ways that the government’s Electricity Market Reform could help reduce electricity demand and an electricity efficiency feed-in tariff (EE FiT) is considered as the most effective and simple means to lower consumers’ energy bills.
Green Alliance director Matthew Spencer said: "The Energy Bill offers the opportunity to support negawatts as well as megawatts, and to do so at a lower cost to the UK economy."
WWF-UK chief executive David Nussbaum commented: "Energy efficiency is the obvious ‘winwin’ in the upcoming reform of our electricity market; keeping a check on rising energy bills while also reducing our dependency on fossil fuels."
Nussbaum urged the UK government to include options to adequately incentivise energy efficiency in the Energy Bill when it is published.
Image: An electricity efficiency feed-in tariff (EE FiT) is considered as the most effective and simple means to lower the energy bills of consumers. Photo: courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
