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IET responds to Energy Strategy

Published: Thu 7 Apr 2022

Craig Lucas, IET Energy Policy Panel Chair, said: “We welcome the announcements made today which are a good start to meet the scale of the challenges to energy security, cost and decarbonisation. And, whilst the Government’s energy strategy covers a balanced portfolio of low carbon generation technologies, including new nuclear reactors and developing low carbon hydrogen production, there are deep concerns and gaps.

“The omission of further initiatives on energy efficiency is a concern, as not only would this reduce our need for energy, and hence energy bills, but improved standards of home insulation are also an important enabler of transitioning from fossil fuels to heat pumps for domestic heating. Building insulation would give immediate energy reduction – and savings – to the public. We need to be building the capability for improving building efficiency alongside heat pumps etc. and this strategy does not go far enough.

“The proposed pace and scale of development of new nuclear reactors over the next eight years is likely to be challenging to achieve and needs to be accompanied by a fully joined-up approach to cost reduction and supply chain development.

“It also lacks any mention of digitalisation. Demand and network management will need to be key elements of a system that can cope with the intermittency of the proposed energy sources. Also considering our dependency on data and communications for system operability, it’s surprising that it says nothing about cyber resilience.”

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Notes to Editor

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Media enquiries to

Rebecca Gillick
Senior Communications Executive
T: +44 (0)7706 297 580
E: rgillick@theiet.org

Hannah Kellett
External Communications Manager
E: HKellett@theiet.org