It’s government’s job to sell the green revolution

So far, successive governments have made a mess of convincing the public to save energy, and with it carbon.

The various energy efficiency obligations placed on energy companies in the form of Cert, Cesp and so on have been delivered, but only in the form of equipment. Houses have been insulated and low-energy light bulbs delivered, and presumably energy has been saved. But it has been done in the teeth of opposition from householders who don’t trust energy suppliers. That mistrust is not surprising, because those self-same suppliers are also the target of government and consumer complaints. So it can’t be said to have delivered much of a change of heart among consumers. They aren’t exactly clamouring for energy efficiency measures and for smart meters that will give them the ability to manage their own use.

This matters. We have managed the easy wins on domestic energy efficiency – the ones that don’t show on the outside, and that don’t affect the value of your house. For the next phase, we are going to need much more real public buy-in.

Look at the measures in the pipeline. The Green Deal needs a huge amount of public understanding. It’s a complicated programme and one where people won’t save money to begin with, although they will be warmer – and better off in the end.

Smart meters also need the public to understand that although the programme has costs up front, the potential benefits outweigh them.

The Renewable Heat Incentive expects customers to invest away from existing heating types to some that are very different (for the problems with that message, see our feature on page 20) – and, incidentally, to take on trust that the government that cut back the feed-in tariff for PV so unexpectedly won’t pull the rug out from under this measure.

These are not market-led programmes: they are government initiatives. Yet the government has left the messaging on them to an energy industry that it is simultaneously rubbishing for being anti-competitive.

Energy efficiency is a complex message to send to an uninterested public, and relying on utilities to do it makes it quite likely that the public attitude will be converted from indifference to outright opposition.

It needs a big investment to get the message across – rather more than the £100 million in the smart meter budget. But it also needs a big push from people at the top who set the plans in motion. The coalition government wanted to be the greenest ever, and although that claim is pretty tarnished, this is an opportunity to give it a boost. The big initiatives have the potential to change the baseline – in the same way that government decisions on smoking in public spaces, or wearing seatbelts, have done – and make energy saving the default option.

But if consumers have to understand that investing up front will mean good returns for them and for us all – so does government.

Memo to the coalition: these are your plans, you have to sell them. If you duck that responsibility it affects us all.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 30 March 2012.
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