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ECA calls for urgent energy price reform
ngineering services trade body ECA has warmly welcomed the urgent reform of electricity pricing recommended by The Climate Change Committee. The latest CCC report to Parliament recommends that future energy pricing must remove current fiscal disincentives to electrification, boosting the deployment and use of low carbon electrical energy across the UK. The CCC report also recommends examining existing energy taxes, such as the Climate Change Levy, to standardise carbon prices, noting that energy price incentives and carbon pricing will lower the current price barriers to electrification. Steve Bratt CEO of ECA, welcomed the recommendations in the CCC report. He said: “There’s no doubt that the UK is undergoing an electric revolution. We urge the government to act on the latest
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recommendations of the CCC report and to urgently reform electricity pricing. This will speed up the switch to an electric, low carbon future.” The CCC also supports a national electric vehicle (EV) charging strategy, with a widespread infrastructure of fast public charging points. In particular, it wants to see a better customer EV charging experience with more access to smart-charging. Bratt added, “We need an integrated plan to install a comprehensive UK charging network to ensure that customers make the switch to EVs in the numbers required and over a timescale that will help to rapidly decarbonise UK transport.” More widely, the CCC applauds the UK’s ambitious climate targets but says the UK government needs clear policies and better application to achieve its goals. The CCC is an independent advisory body set up to advise the UK government on how to achieve UK carbon emissions reductions and deal with climate change.
Can hiring equipment bridge a skills gap?
he UK skills shortage has been amplified as a result of COVID-19, after research has found that site managers are not confident in the ability of their team to operate or fix a steam boiler. In the recent survey, 99% of industrial workers said it is either very difficult or somewhat difficult to hire staff with the skills required to operate or fix a steam boiler because of the impact of COVID19. The survey of over 200 respondents was commissioned by Aggreko as the business look for more ways to identify and alleviate industry pain points. It included those working in maintenance, production, energy, and facilities roles across manufacturing, petrochemical, hospitals and governmental organisations.
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The industrial skills gap was further highlighted in March when 20 MPs signed an Early Day Motion[1] calling for manufacturing skills to be included in national curriculum. The group noted that closing the skills gap in manufacturing will require 186,000 skilled individuals to be hired every year until 2024.
According to Aggreko, it is actively looking at ways in which its hire proposition can negate the need for businesses to source specialist skills in-house. Options include companies supplementing equipment during periods of maintenance and high demand, or moving over to decentralised solutions. Within its same survey, over half (59%) of respondents stated the lack of skilled labour as a reason for COVID19 having a negative impact on the business recently. Matt Watson, manufacturing specialist at Aggreko Northern Europe, said: “Industry is at an energy crossroads, conflicted by a clear desire to become more sustainable and innovative in the way it uses power and temperature control, but also with an ongoing need to do more with less following a period of disruption. Naturally this is exacerbating an already-pressured skills shortage across industry.”
s employees across the UK are to set to embark on their return to the workplace following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions in July, new research reveals that many commuters are reluctant to return to their place of work in the coming months, mainly due to increased concern over infection control and social distancing on the daily commute. According to a nationally-representative survey into 2,000 UK workers, conducted by corporate transport specialist Kura, nearly one fifth (19.1%) of workers in the manufacturing industry plan to never commute again post pandemic, wi! th regional variations from 10.8% in London to 29.1% in Wales. The reluctance to return to the workplace stems largely from the travel to and from work, with nearly 60% of workers across the UK admitting that they hold real concerns around the commute post lockdown. This is particularly prevalent for the senior workforce, with Board-level (98%), Directors (85%) and Managers (77%) holding the biggest concerns over the future of the commute. Kura’s research uncovered that the key root to commuters’ concerns post lockdown is infection control and lack of social distancing on public transport. Across the UK, 36% of workers hold Covid-
Fifth of manufacturing workers will not commute post pandemic A
related concerns with regard to the future of the commute, and this percentage increases to 54.4% for those employees commuting in and around London. There is a strong cry for help with commuting from employees, particularly Graduates (70%) and Junior Executives (73%). Despite this, the commute is not a priority for the vast majority of businesses across the UK, with just 16.4% of companies expressing desire to monitor or support employees on their commute going forward.
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