The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has set out its official departmental plan for 2015 to 2020.
Released last week, the plan underlines a commitment by the Government to deliver ''an energy infrastructure fit for the 21st Century'' that delivers clean energy cheaply.
In 2015/2016 the plan confirms £3.3 billion departmental expenditure and a vision for ''secure, affordable and clean energy supplies''. The plan also states four key priorities which include:
The strategy confirms many of the policies and consultations DECC has launched since the election.
It affirms plans to aid energy security by reviewing the Capacity Market to:
The plan also defends the cuts made by the Government to renewable energy subsidies and energy efficiency spending. It argues that the Levy Control Framework which capped spending on green levies was on course to overshoot spending by £1.4 billion.
DECC stated: ''It is only right that when the costs of renewables fall, subsidies should also fall... We have therefore announced changes to the Renewables Obligation and Feed-in-Tariff programmes (subsidy schemes for demand-led low carbon electricity generation) to bring those costs under control, and published our response to consultations on these changes in December 2015. All of the proposed actions have the potential to save consumers in the region of £500m a year from 2020 to 2021".
Ministers will continue to pursue an end to any new public subsidy for onshore wind. Instead the focus on reducing emissions over the next decade will be by replacing coal power with new gas plants. They added: ''One of the most cost-effective contributions we can now make to further reducing emissions in the power sector is replacing coal-fired power stations with gas. We will consult in Spring 2016 on proposals to close all unabated coal power stations by 2025 and restrict their use by 2023, if we are confident that enough new gas generation will come forward to ensure security of supply.''
The plan underlines the DECC's renewed commitment to funding clean technology innovations, and details how it will more than double spending on their innovation programme to £500 million. It also reiterates a focus on tackling emissions from heat, specifically revealing plans to provide better integration between heat and energy efficiency policies. The document states. ''In the short term we are looking at the performance of boilers and conventional heating systems. We will continue to develop a long-term strategy to drive low carbon and renewable heat through a stable, coherent and affordable framework.''
DECC believes there is ''significant untapped potential'' for energy saving in the business sector, and with the public sector spending around £4 billion on energy annually, the Government plans to invest a further £295 million in energy efficiency over the next five years to help reduce costs and emissions.
