Spring Statement 2019: Helping businesses to improve the way they use energy: call for evidence

The government response summarises responses and views, confirming:

• vision
  • the significant role for government in strengthening existing regulations and schemes
  • the increased pressure on the electricity grid in the future and the importance of energy storage and flexible energy generation
• buildings
  • the key role of minimum standards and the importance of setting a future trajectory for tightening standards in the rented sector
  • the importance of voluntary standards but not as a replacement for regulation
• market building
  • that more needs to be done to boost the market, including increasing demand for energy efficiency measures with businesses and especially SMEs
  • the need to focus on standardisation, aggregation, data and encouraging lenders
• SMEs
  • the importance of government playing more of a role in engaging SMEson energy efficiency
  • the various barriers which make engaging SMEs so difficult
• industrial processes
  • that the key barriers preventing more energy efficient processes were general economic uncertainty, higher payback periods and other “hassle” costs
  • that the barriers impacted in different ways given the heterogeneous nature of manufacturing processes