The New Energy Security Bill: A Move Towards Cleaner Energy

Credit: UC Davis

The Energy Security Bill (the Bill), which was presented at Parliament on the 6th of July 2022, affirms the United Kingdom’s goal to secure a carbon neutral future. In light of environmental concerns and rapidly increasing energy prices, the Bill aims to redirect the United Kingdom’s energy supply away from fossil fuels.

The strategy behind the Bill revolves around diversifying the United Kingdom’s energy sources. To this end, the Bill outlines a pathway for the investment into clean energy technologies. This pathway concerns investment into carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) on top of ensuring the availability of low-carbon hydrogen. Low-carbon hydrogen refers to hydrogen produced with a limited amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

Despite the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions possible through the use of low-carbon hydrogen in the transport sector, the costs associated with producing low-carbon hydrogen have previously made low-carbon hydrogen a financially difficult case. The Bill has fundamentally changed the United Kingdom’s approach to low-carbon hydrogen by incentivising investment into its production.

Investment into low-carbon hydrogen comes in the form of the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund. The Net Zero Hydrogen Fund contains £240,000,000 aimed at increasing investment into the production of low-carbon hydrogen from the private sector. Part of the Net Zero Hydrogen Fund will also be leveraged to directly finance upfront costs associated with the production of low-carbon hydrogen.

To further reduce carbon emissions, the Bill also streamlines investment opportunities for the instillation of electric heat pumps in domestic settings. Traditional gas boilers, a staple of the British household, are set to face competition through the wider distribution of electric heat pumps in the domestic heating sector. Electric heat pumps, which are installed on the outer walls of buildings, absorb heat from the air, water and the ground. This heat is then filtered into interior environments to provide warmth. Electric heat pumps are an efficient low-carbon alternative to gas boilers (which rely on fossil fuels).

The costs associated with the purchase and instillation of electric heat pumps have made it difficult for the devices to gain a foothold in the domestic heating sector. The Bill aims to tackle these concerns through periodically reducing the costs of electric heat pumps to be in line with standard gas boilers. The Bill also aims to increase investment into the production of electric heat pumps to expand their availability.

The Bill reaffirms the United Kingdom’s aim to meet its net zero target by 2050. Through additional investment into sustainable energy sources, the Bill can accelerate the reduction of carbon emissions within the United Kingdom. 

By Brighton Dube