Energy Act 2011
The Act has three principal objectives: tackling barriers to energy efficiency; enhancing energy security; and enabling investment in low carbon energy supplies.
Requires the government to prepare regular reports on progress on the decarbonisation of electricity generation in Britain and the development and use of CCS.
Includes measures to improve energy security and to enable low carbon technologies.
Removes barriers to the reuse of existing capital assets for CO2 storage and transportation where they are suitable; allows National Parks and Broads Authority to generate and sell renewable electricity within specific constraints; extends the Renewable Heat Incentive primary powers in the Energy Act 2008 to cover Northern Ireland enabling them to make their own regulations to incentivise renewable heat.
Creates a new financing framework – “The Green Deal” – to enable the provision of fixed improvements to the energy efficiency of households and non-domestic properties which can be funded by a charge (offset by savings) on energy bills.
It also includes provisions to ensure that, from April 2016, private residential landlords will be unable to refuse a tenant’s reasonable request for consent to energy efficiency improvements, where a finance package, such as the Green Deal and/or Energy Company Obligation (ECO) is available. Provisions in the Act also provide for powers to ensure that, from 2018, it will be unlawful to rent out a residential or business premises that does not reach a minimum energy efficiency standard.
The law also enables the Minister to create a new Energy Company Obligation to take over from the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target [CERT] and Community Energy Saving Programme [CESP]), which expire at the end of 2012, and to work alongside the Green Deal finance offer by targeting appropriate measures at those households which are likely to need additional support, including those on low incomes and hard to treat housing.
The Act amends the smart meters powers in the Energy Act 2008 to allow government to direct the approach to the rollout of smart meters until 2018 and to enable the Minister to make changes to transmission licences to ensure the effective introduction of the new central data and communications arrangements to support all smart meters; amends the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2007, to enable the removal of unnecessary restrictions on access to data; establishes powers for the Minister to require energy companies to provide information on the cheapest tariff on energy bills.
