THE WARREN REPORT


past half century, the UK ratio for energy consumption/Gross Domestic Production has improved by a staggering 60%.


Eff ective effi ciency eff orts As the Oxford academic Hannah Ritchie explains in her current best- selling book, ‘Not the End of the World’, while some of this fall reflects the offshoring of energy intensive manufacturing to other countries, most of it does not. Energy efficiency policy really has been reducing energy consumption. The Secretary of State’s speech


Why ignore the potential to reduce energy use?


A reduction in the country’s energy consumption has been a cornerstone of previous administrations, so why does the current Secretary of State choose to ignore the potential for further savings? asks Andrew Warren.


J


ust before the 4th July General Election date was set, an advertisement was placed for an £84,000 p.a. chief


speechwriter for the UK Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. The job must “capture the voice”, then “manage the overall speech process from proposal and content development”, and “provide strategic advice to shape speeches”. On recent evidence, the sooner


this new person is in post the better, because the previous incumbent must be held fully responsible for the extraordinary blunders the present Secretary of State made last month, when she gave her set piece keynote speech to the massive Innovation Zero 2024 Sustainability Conference.


Truth and lies Claire Coutinho gave herself no room for subsequent manoeuvre. She began by saying: “Let me challenge one of the great untruths that I get told in this role… to which I say NO!” What was this great untruth ,


everyone present wondered? She was unequivocal. The untruth


was: “We will be using less energy going forward.”


EIBI | JUNE 2024


In that simple sentence, Coutinho was defying everything that has happened under all her various predecessors of various political


parties, particularly during this century. Effectively, she was declaring that ever increasing profligacy in energy usage is irrelevant to the nation’s net zero ambitions.


But consistently, year after year, the trend towards greater energy efficiency has up until now been remorseless. We have simply been using less and less energy. We have seriously reduced fuel usage, buying 37% less energy than we were at peak two decades or so ago. Energy consumption per head in the UK has fallen by one-third. Over the


went on to explain why she thought energy consumption could never fall: “Again, I strongly suspect that this is not the case. Which is why in post I’ve taken steps to set out historic expansions of nuclear power, to boost our offshore wind sector and, yes, to argue for more gas power plants where we need them too.” Rather than troubling even momentarily to address how effectively energy is used, her speech’s emphasis was effectively placed entirely upon energy supply sources, rather than any concept of demand management. This total imbalance reflects the


perverse priority adopted by the senior bureaucrats in this latest incarnation of the Energy Department. Their notorious 314-page 2023 Energy Security White Paper, launched in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, completely ignored the potential to employ demand management options. This made


the UK a complete outlier amongst comparable European countries, who between them undertook effective and purposeful initiatives that succeeded in reducing overall gas consumption by 13% in a single year. The sole explanation for Coutinho’s


Canute-like response to energy consumption reductions was to argue that energy consumption will increase ”because of the rise of data centres”. Important, yes, but trend reversing? I think not. So, do others agree that we have hit peak energy efficiency, and that there is no chance to reduce energy consumption further in our brave new Net Zero world? Entirely the opposite. Certainly the government’s official


advisory body, the Committee on Climate Change, has a working scenario that sees energy demand fall by 49% between 2019 and 2050. National Grid, the very profitability of which depends upon sound forecasting, has 2022 to 2050 scenarios that vary between a 34% reduction (‘Leading The Way’) , a 30% reduction (‘Consumer Transformation’) and the rather depressing just 22% scenario (‘Falling Short’).


Top priority The International Energy Agency still regularly dubs energy efficiency as its top priority, because it is charged with delivering half the reductions necessary to meet the Net Zero 2050 targets. Even more pertinently, the government boffins’ own official Net Zero Strategy continues to predict final energy demand falling by 27% between 2022 and 2037. The UK will soon have a new


Energy efficiency policy really has been reducing energy consumption


Claire Coutinho


Secretary of State covering energy policy. Indeed, it may even be run unusually by a politician with considerable experience in the topic. If so, the new speechwriter will really have to up their game. The 600-word job description may even have to be seriously rewritten. Because as of now, the likely topics to be covered express an exclusive concern with energy supply sources (even the dear old chimera of nuclear fusion gets cited). No reference at all as to how energy is actually used. We really are moving towards a cleaner world. And energy efficiency has one of the biggest parts to play in that move. ■


Andrew Warren


Chairs the British Energy Efficiency Federation


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