The Energy Act 2013 is an Act of the

Parliament of the United Kingdom The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, and may also legislate for the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace ...

, relating to the energy sector. It succeeded the Energy Act 2010. The Act focuses on setting

decarbonisation Climate change mitigation (or decarbonisation) is action to limit the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that cause climate change. Climate change mitigation actions include conserving energy and replacing fossil fuels with clean energy sour ...

targets for the UK, and reforming the electricity market. The Act was intended by

Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change The secretary of state for energy and climate change was a British Government cabinet position from 2008 to 2016. The Department of Energy and Climate Change was created on 3 October 2008 when then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown reshuffled his Cabi ...

Ed Davey Sir Edward Jonathan Davey (born 25 December 1965) is a British politician who has served as the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, leader of the Liberal Democrat party since 2020. He served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Secretary of State ...

to "attract investment to bring about a once-in-a-generation transformation of our electricity market".

History

The Energy Bill was introduced by the government in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

for

first reading A reading of a bill is a stage of debate on the bill held by a general body of a legislature. In the Westminster system, developed in the United Kingdom, there are generally three readings of a bill as it passes through the stages of becoming, ...

on 29 November 2012, and passed a vote at third reading with cross-party support on 4 June 2013. The Bill received Royal Assent on 18 December 2013.

Aims

The Act aims to maintain a stable electricity supply as

coal-fired power station A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide there are about 2,500 coal-fired power stations, on average capable of generating a gigawatt each. They generate ...

s are retired. This includes facilitating the building of a new set of

nuclear power station A nuclear power plant (NPP), also known as a nuclear power station (NPS), nuclear generating station (NGS) or atomic power station (APS) is a thermal power station in which the heat source is a nuclear reactor. As is typical of thermal power st ...

s and the establishment of a new regulator, the

Office for Nuclear Regulation The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) is the regulator for the nuclear industry in the United Kingdom.< ...

. The act proposed a delay in setting decarbonisation targets under the

Climate Change Act 2008 The Climate Change Act 2008 (c 27) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The Act makes it the duty of the Secretary of State to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions, toward avoiding dangerous climate change. The Act aims to enab ...

, until 2016. Businesses and analysts criticised the uncertainty this caused for investors, notably

Balfour Beatty Balfour Beatty plc () is an international infrastructure group based in the United Kingdom with capabilities in construction services, support services and infrastructure investments. A constituent of the FTSE 250 Index, the company is active ac ...

and

Ernst & Young EY, previously known as Ernst & Young, is a multinational corporation, multinational professional services partnership, network based in London, United Kingdom. Along with Deloitte, KPMG and PwC, it is one of the Big Four accounting firms, Big F ...

. Conservative MP

Tim Yeo Timothy Stephen Kenneth Yeo (born 20 March 1945) is a British politician. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of South Suffolk between the 1983 United Kingdom general election and tha ...

and Labour MP Barry Gardiner tabled amendments to the Bill to reinsert a 2030 decarbonisation target for the power sector by 2014. The act also enabled the government to privatise the Government Pipelines and Storage System.

References

Energy policy of the United Kingdom Energy in the United Kingdom Climate change policy Public policy in the United Kingdom United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 2013 Energy law {{UK-gov-stub

History

Aims

See also

References