Emissions performance

The UK Coalition Government should move ahead with its pre-election commitment to introduce an emissions performance standard (EPS), according to the Energy and Climate Change Committee.

An EPS would effectively prevent new coal-fired power stations being built without adequate carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology.

However, the Parliamentary Committee cautions that plans for an EPS should be carefully considered in light of existing policies, including the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), the Renewables Obligation and the CCS demonstration programme.

The Committee welcomes the Government’s plans for an independent review of the electricity market, potential reforms and how this would work with an EPS.
But the report urges the Government to consider what a UK EPS should be intended to achieve – faster emissions reductions from the power sector? Stopping the building of new high-carbon infrastructure – as EPS has been used in California and other US states? Or stimulating the development and deployment of CCS?

"There is a range of options to be considered in designing an EPS for the UK, including the way in which the limit is expressed, the facilities to which it applies, when it should come into force, whether and how it should be made more stringent over time and whether there should be any exceptions to the regulation,” says the report.