Two steps forward, one back
February 1st 2008

With energy efficiency gaining importance for both Government and business,Alan Aldridge, executive director of the Energy Services and Technology Association (ESTA), looks at the way the two interact

The recent conference organised by ESTA on automatic Monitoring & Targeting (aM&T) provided a useful snapshot of the current situation in respect of Government initiatives on energy efficiency.

First, the event was fully subscribed with over 450 delegates, mainly endusers; we had to add extra seating for all the delegates who turned up.That shows how interested consumers are in energy efficiency and the way that legislation is developing.There is also a recognition both in the offices of business and in the corridors of Whitehall that technology can provide powerful weapons in the fight to reduce energy consumption and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

And in certain key areas of policy there is change in prospect. Civil servants involved in the development of three policies explained the progress being made in: the Carbon Reduction Commitment for large, non-intensive energy users; Display Energy Certificates for large public sector organisations; and the roll-out of smart metering across the industrial and commercial (I&C) sectors.

However, the approaches adopted – from three different Government departments – provided some stark contrasts. Implementation of the CRC is being controlled by Defra, while the introduction of DECs is the responsibility of the Department of Communities and Local Government (CLG).There have been public consultations on both of these measures and there has been a feeling that Government has been listening to the end-users, the people who will be affected most directly by the changes in the law.

There has been a very real sense of engagement, with the Departments concerned being willing to develop and fine-tune their thinking about these issues.This will make the resulting legislation both easier to implement by business and more effective in delivering real performance improvements and carbon savings.

By contrast, consumers are largely in the dark about the details of the smart metering proposals, which are being driven by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR).The information seems to be disseminated on a 'need to know' basis as Sir Humphrey might have put it – and the consumer will apparently only need to know when the rules have been finalised.There has been consultation but it has been primarily the energy supply industry that has been involved in discussing and refining the overall approach to the issue.Yet the whole point of the smart metering programme is to help consumers deliver real savings.

To achieve this, they need to be involved in the creation of implementation frameworks that enable them to grasp and maximise these opportunities. Reinforcing the supply-side mentality in metering services will not be the most effective way of doing this.And here we also have to look at the record of the utilities in delivering demandreduction assistance. Estimates suggest that around 80% of gas bills are still estimated – over 20 years after the industry was privatised.

There also seems to be an assumption in BERR that the I&C market is very similar to the domestic sector and so the same methodology will apply to both.This seems an extraordinary view and ESTA does not believe it can be made to work effectively.Business has quite different needs from the average domestic user,particularly in the way in which metered data is put to use. In business, energy management is a vital and increasingly sophisticated tool which relies on up-to-date, accurate information to provide analysis, prediction, load management and optimisation – most of which is not even on the radar for domestic consumers.Yet this essential difference seems to have passed the Department by and could potentially mean that the UK does not meet the requirements of the Energy Services Directive. Hopefully, they will realise that business needs a different,more fine-grained approach before we have an unworkable arrangement imposed on us.

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