Consultation outcome: Helping businesses to improve the way they use energy call for evidence

The consultation call for evidence set out possible approaches to improving energy efficiency in business and industry by 20% by 2030, and sought views on the level of ambition and how Government plan to measure progress. It also sought views on the actions businesses and government could take to improve take up energy efficiency across buildings and industrial processes.The government response summarises responses and views, confirming: Vision the significant role for government in strengthening existing regulations and schemes the increased pressure on the electricity grid in the future and the importance of energy storage and flexible energy generation Buildings the key role of minimum standards and the importance of setting a future trajectory for tightening standards in the rented sector the importance of voluntary standards but not as a replacement for regulation Market building that more needs to be done to boost the market, including increasing demand for energy efficiency measures with businesses and especially SMEs the need to focus on standardisation, aggregation, data and encouraging lenders SMEs the importance of government playing more of a role in engaging SMEson energy efficiency the various barriers which make engaging SMEs so difficult Industrial processes that the key barriers preventing more energy efficient processes were general economic uncertainty, higher payback periods and other “hassle” costs that the barriers impacted in different ways given the heterogeneous nature of manufacturing processes BEIS have issued a call for evidence on introducing a new Business Energy Efficiency Scheme for SMEs in parallel with this Government response. Read the report and accompanying documents here.