24 DEBATE


Miranda Barker, East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce and Lancashire Enterprise Partnership


When it comes to engaging businesses, it must be about the cost savings to be made and the need to avoid further taxation in the future. Then it is the fact you can reduce your bottom-line costs. Energy prices are only going to go up, so the more you can generate internally and reduce energy use, the better for business.


It is also about your customer base and your stakeholders. The clean agenda is coming towards them like a freight train. If you’re supplying to the public sector you are going to need to show your low carbon, net zero statistics. Your future customers and employees will also want to see that.


We don’t need short-term subsidies. We need changes in government procurement policy, so everything the public sector buys has got to have a green baseline.


We need changes in planning policy nationwide, so any new build must have a certain baseline of energy efficiency technology built in. It is about increases in landfill prices, increases in percentages of recycled materials that must be in products, and carbon taxation.


Then you drive all that energy market forward, you drive energy prices up so businesses want to look for alternative solutions and find green financing support.


If that policy change and push isn’t there, the train won’t start rolling. Miranda Barker


Lyndsay Roche, Westinghouse


Lyndsay Roche


Nuclear is now recognised as a key contributor to net zero. There is a whole body of evidence that indicates that without nuclear you can’t achieve it. That’s because of the firm baseload power it can provide, and it is why we absolutely need nuclear as part of the energy mix.


We have existing nuclear power stations, and from Springfields we’ve been supplying fuel to those stations for 70 years. We contribute 35 per cent to the UK’s low carbon electricity.


We are already looking to the future, new power stations, and Lancashire can play a lead role in supporting fuelling and servicing of those reactors, as well as in construction.


We need everybody to cheerlead on behalf of the sector. It employs thousands of people in Lancashire, it employs 60,000 people in the UK. We’re at the forefront, internationally, in advancements in fuel and technologies, so it has a massive role to play, and a huge contribution to make to the clean energy agenda.


We launched the Clean Energy Technology Park at Springfields last year. As we see the decline in the current power stations the question is, ‘how do we get ready for the next generation?’


We recognised the need to create a collaborative hub. It’s not just about making fuel for nuclear power stations; it is about that whole clean energy approach.


Mike Taylor, Electricity North West


We need everybody to take part in this agenda, otherwise we’re going to have to build a network that’s three times the size it is now.


So, we need everybody to play their part, from switching off your lights at home to putting solar panels on your roof or decarbonising as a business. And it is looking how to do that through staff and carbon literacy.


We also need to bust some myths. I was told 10 years ago that anything north of Eastbourne from a solar point of view was not worth doing, which is not right. There is a massive education piece to be had here.


It is also converting carbon into pounds, shillings and pence, so people understand it better. That’s what they are asking us, ‘Does this work? Does it save me money? And does it return on its investment?’


We need nuclear, we need that base load to keep the network stable and we need to see more of it coming online. Wind is great, solar is great, but it is unpredictable, so we need that base load to keep the lights on. We’re spending customers’ money here, and we need your support to tell us where we spend that and where we invest that better.


Mike Taylor Rosie Connor


Rosie Connor, JRC Roofing


As a business, we’re always trying to look at things that we can improve, especially if there are cost savings to be made.


That approach is being driven by things like the pandemic, which has meant that you’ve got to look really carefully at your business costs, to ensure that you can keep going.


If we were to tender for work, possibly we would get asked questions and that may be something that we should prepare ourselves for.


It is a matter of confidence. We are aware we could invest in solar panels, but we have held off, not wanting to invest a lot of money with an uncertain return.


Shorter payback periods of three to five years, instead of 10-12 years, would definitely give us a lot more confidence.


We invested heavily in a biomass boiler quite a few years ago and we were told that it would actually be an income earner for us. The Renewable Heat Incentive that we get doesn’t pay for the fuel that we put in it.


In the United States cities are paying for everything to be recycled, backed by investments in companies, I believe that is the future.


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