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Public concerned about UK security of supply

There is a high level of concern in the British public about the UK's future security of energy supply, according to the latest results published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) today.

Wave six of the public attitudes tracker survey, revealed 84 cent of people said they were concerned, the security of future energy supply. This was unchanged from the second wave of the survey.

A further 63 per cent stating they were concerned about UK supplier of fossil fuels not being enough to meet UK demand (down from 66 per cent in wave two).

Support for nuclear power also remains mixed, with 37 per cent supporting the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity, similar to 38 per cent in wave 3, when the question was first asked.

Twenty seven per cent of respondents opposed nuclear power and 34 per cent neither supporting nor opposing it.

The concern about energy bills fell slightly from 46 per cent to 40 per cent, although Decc noted this could be due to the “unusually hot” weather in July.

There was no change in energy saving behaviours, with 23 per cent and 51 per cent of people giving energy efficiency measures a lot or a fair amount of thought.

The support for renewable energy generation also remained steady, with 76 per cent of respondents in favour of then to generate the country’s electricity, heat and fuel. This was similar to the response in wave two, which was 77 per cent.