The government has introduced the Energy Security Bill to Parliament, setting out a series of measures to boost Britain’s energy independence and security.
On 6 July, BEIS outlined how the Bill will help to drive £100bn of private sector investment by 2030 into new British industries, including the likes of hydrogen and offshore wind, helping to diversify the country’s domestic energy supply and support around 480,000 jobs by the end of the decade.
There are 26 measures in total across three themes of reforming the energy system to protect consumers from unfair pricing, leveraging private investment in clean technologies and building a homegrown energy system, and ensuring the safety, security and resilience of the UK’s energy system.
These measures include accelerating the growth of low carbon technologies, including carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) and hydrogen, through introducing “state of the art” business models which can help to draw in private investment through the promise of long-term revenue certainty, as well as establishing the economic regulation and licensing framework to both enable the set-up and scale-up of first-of-a-kind CO2 transport and storage networks. These measures together will place the UK on course to “seize market share and grow the economy”.
The Bill also sets out to enable the delivery of a large village hydrogen heating trial by 2025. This will pave the way to inform strategic decisions in 2026 on the role of hydrogen in heat decarbonisation, with Whitby and Redcar the potential locations.
