The National Audit Office (NAO) has warned that the UK Government risks not meeting its ambition to decarbonise power by 2035 because it lacks a delivery plan.
The group said that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) has made little progress on a long-term delivery plan for all electricity to be generated through clean energy sources.
The lack of a delivery plan risks diminishing the confidence of industry stakeholders, who have increasingly expressed concerns about how all the change and investment that is needed across the power sector will be brought together without a strategic vision.
Similarly, the absence of a clear plan and the perception that there could be changes in government policies could deter external investors from providing funds for new infrastructure or lead them to increase the rates of return they require, ultimately increasing costs for energy consumers.
The NAO recommends that DESNZ needs to set clear measures of overall progress with interim milestones and that these should be reported annually to Parliament, along with an explanation of how this performance information has been used to determine any significant changes to its overall plan.
“It is understandable that DESNZ and its predecessor BEIS has focused on dealing with the immediate energy crisis over the past 12 months,” stated Gareth Davies, Head of the NAO.
“But one consequence of this is that it lacks a delivery plan for decarbonising power by 2035, which is the backbone of its broader net zero ambition.
“The longer DESNZ goes without a critical path that brings together different aspects of power decarbonisation, the higher the risk that it does not achieve its ambitions, or it does so at a greater than necessary cost to taxpayers and consumers.”