Advisor to Institute of Directors calls for plan B on energy
Dan Lewis, an energy policy advisor to the Institute of Directors and chief executive of the economic policy centre, has said the UK needs a plan B with regard to energy policy. Problems, he said, come when the value of how environmentally-friendly something is is put first.
Speaking to CNBC, Mr Lewis said: "what we need is a plan B. Rather than trying to spend £161bn by 2020, which is not feasible, I think we should be looking at a much smaller number – around 60 or 70."
Mr Lewis said that no serious analyst believed that the UK would be able to increase its electricity generation from renewables from 10 per cent to 35 per cent – currently the governments target. He observed that there was a hierarchy of values with regard to energy, the first being security, the second affordability and the third environmentally-friendly. Trouble in the energy market begins to arise when this hierarchy is inverted.
Government policies were also to blame, in part, for the state of the UK energy market. Mr Lewis listed lack of gas storage, the two year delay on fracking and the premature closure of coal fired power stations as problems in the UK energy sector.