Standard content for Members only

To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.

If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.

Become a member

Start 14 day trial

Login Register

Suppliers set to be allowed to miss part of Eco target

The major energy suppliers will be allowed to miss part of their phase Energy Company Obligation (Eco) target under new plans put forward by the government.

In a consultation on the future of Eco published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc), the eligible energy suppliers would be able to deliver less than their share of the new 2015 Carbon Emissions Reduction Obligation (CERO) target.

If a supplier did fall short of the revised target for 2015, they would see their 2017 CERO target increase by 1.1 times the shortfall.

The plans also proposed a reduction of 33 per cent of the 2015 CERO target for the suppliers, although the March 2015 targets for the Carbon Saving Community Obligation (CSCO) and Affordable Warmth would remain the same.

The Eco extension, which would see the scheme run for an additional two years until March 2017, will impose new targets on the suppliers for all sections of Eco on a pro rata basis of the revised 2015 targets.

Additional changes would be made to the 2015 Eco targets, which include extending the CSCO element from 15 per cent to the 25 per cent lowest areas on the Index of Multiple Deprivation.

District heating connections would become eligible for CERO from April 2014, as would easy to treat cavity wall insulation, and loft insulation measures.

A minimum target for the installation of solid wall insulation by 2017 would also be set.

The Eco extension – from April 2015 to March 2017 – would provide an uplift of five per cent for measures installed into households whose main fuel type is not natural gas under the Affordable Warmth obligation.

The Decc consultation on the future of Eco closes on 16 April 2014.