Reality not concept?

In last week's newsletter we reported on the governments announcements regarding the long-awaited Energy Bill.

The Energy Bill, expected this week, will allow energy providers to charge households for the extra costs of moving towards a low carbon electricity infrastructure, including renewables. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has estimated the £7.6bn the plan has allocated to low carbon energy will add around £110 to the average household energy bill over the next eight years. The deal has also delayed setting a decarbonisation target for 2030 until 2016.

We received the following response from ER reader John Moss. As always, I would be very interested to hear your views.

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The adverse comment from the Greens and others illustrates a dangerous unworldliness in engineering and technological matters. Putting off the date for setting targets and methods to 2016, even when only three years away, still allows for the proper development and selection of renewables of all forms based on real observation and performance analysis which an earlier date would not. Governments have to legislate realities and not concepts.

They have a point about the £110 per annum levy but against this must be set the better reductions in costs in the longer term resulting from the better reduction in use of gas if the development of renewables has a sounder basis from the start. The comment also begs the question as to how the ordinary consumer is to enjoy reduced costs of gas usage without a levy being fed into renewables development.

Regards,
John Moss