The Committee on Climate Change is placing too much emphasis on the role of gas and nuclear and is underestimating energy storage and bio resources in carbon budgets, according to the Renewable Energy Association.
Addressing the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee’s Setting The Fifth Carbon Budget inquiry, REA chief executive Dr Nina Skorupska said the CCC’s advice to government published last November on the carbon budget covering the period 2028-32 is too skewed towards gas and nuclear.
“The CCC vastly underestimates potential of energy storage and really reinforces dash for gas and the high energy prices of nuclear,” she said.
“The CCC has missed how quickly energy storage is moving and how we can deliver the budget through a decentralized system that is far cheaper than nuclear.”
Energy Savings Trust chief executive Philip Sellwood added: “We feel the integration of technology, particularly storage, micro-renewables and energy efficiency is not as high up the agenda as we’d like to see.”
Skorupska also said the CCC had also underestimated the potential of anaerobic digestion in reducing agricultural emissions and criticised their “lack of championing” of biomass, biomethane and biofuels.
“We are not recognising the value and benefits of using bio resources in a sustainable way,” she added.
Image: Dr Nina Skorupska (REA)
CCC ‘reinforces’ dash for gas
Advisory body 'vastly underestimating' role of storage, bio resources
By EBS