Nicola Sturgeon has announced a £100 million Green Jobs Fund as part of Scotland’s Programme for 2020-21, which is set to build on the country’s Green New Deal. This funding was announced alongside a further £1.6 billion in investment for low carbon projects under a new Low Carbon Fund, and £60 million to help industrial and manufacturing sectors to decarbonise, grow and diversify.

The Green Jobs Fund will be paid out over the next five years, with the aim of increasing opportunities for green job creation in Scotland. It will be supported by a £25 million National Transition Training Fund, to ensure the country can provide the large number of skilled workers required for its transition to net zero. This funding demonstrates how the transition to net zero can be beneficial not just for the environment, but also for a country’s economy, too.

For more information on Scotland’s green recovery plans, click here.

In its latest measure to make a green recovery from COVID-19, the Government has launched a consultation into how its proposed Green Gas Levy should be implemented. Funding from the levy will go into building more biomethane plants, which will lead to more biomethane being injected into the grid and play a key role in the decarbonisation of the gas industry.

It’s estimated that the levy will cause minimal cost increases for energy customers, starting at just 11 pence per month. Encouragingly, it should have a significant impact on the environment, as it has the potential to prevent up to 21.6 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere (the equivalent to planting over 71 million trees).

For information on how you can respond to the consultation, click here.

There is growing speculation that the UK Government is set to bring forward its ban on new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2040 to 2030, according to The Guardian.

Earlier this year, the government held a consultation on plans to bring the deadline for sales of new fossil-fuelled vehicles forward, from 2040 to 2035, but it’s now expected to imminently announce a more ambitious 2030 deadline. This follows assurances from National Grid that the UK’s infrastructure will be able to cope with an earlier shift to electric vehicles, as they have predicted that electrifying all road transport will require less than a third more power than our current demand. This increase in demand is something that, “the grid could easily cope with”, according to National Grid’s Project Director for EVs, Graeme Cooper.

To find out more, click here.

Kwasi Kwarteng, the minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth confirmed that the Energy White Paper will be published in the next few months. The energy industry has been eagerly awaiting this publication, as it will detail the Government’s plan for reaching its net zero emissions by 2050 target, and contain key information about the technologies and pathways it will be supporting.

On 17th September, Kwarteng stated, “The energy white paper is a priority and it will be published this autumn.” The Energy White Paper has now been delayed for over a year, as it was originally due to be published in summer 2019. It is now tentatively scheduled for November, and is expected to include support for clean hydrogen and for small, modular nuclear reactors among other measures related to the clean energy transition.

Click here to find out more.

Political, financial and tech leaders from across the globe will unite under a newly-created COP26 Energy Transition Council to help accelerate the transition from coal to clean power. The council will work towards ensuring that clean power is the most attractive energy option in every country considering new power generation, and it will work with businesses to advance the development of clean energy solutions, such as energy storage and clean hydrogen production.

Council members will support businesses through a combination of development assistance, climate finance and sharing expertise. There will also be a new £50 million Clean Energy Innovation Facility to support developing countries to bring clean energy technologies to market quicker and help them to make a green recovery from COVID-19. It’s really important for developing countries to be able to access support for decarbonisation if they need it, as many are heavily dependent on fossil fuel, so it’s encouraging to see that the global community is coming together to provide this.

To find out more about the COP26 Energy Transition Council, click here.

If you have any questions about the changes discussed above or how they might affect your business, our team of experts is on hand to answer them. Simply call us on 0330 053 8620 or email us at heretohelp@brytenergy.co.uk.