"Where are we going with energy?", asks BPF

The BPF has added it's concerns to reports that UK gas supplies are nearing exhaustion and blackouts might be imminent. "We're in a world governed by unexpected events", said Public & Industrial Affairs Director Philip Law, "and we expect government to have plans in place. Just where are we going with energy in the UK?'
 
'We may or may not be running out of gas in early April but this sorry saga pointedly reinforces the message we've been hacking away at government with for over two years', he added. 'Our President, Philip Watkins, and Peter Davis, our Director-General raised it directly with George Osborne only a couple of weeks ago and we had earlier written to Ed Davey, the Secretary of State for Energy, on January 29th telling him that, ''Government needs to fast-track new replacement energy generation capacity and gas storage to ensure that supply equals demand and that energy costs do not escalate.'' We gave him the stark warning that ''we are not moving fast enough to ensure UK energy supplies meet demand'' '.
 
Law continued, 'We just can't sail so close to the wind like this. Industry needs the confidence that it will be able to fulfil it's contracts. We can't divert resources to sorting out emergency power supplies and radically rescheduling production schedules. The government must realise that without energy there is no industrial economy and it's got to fix this.'
 
'Reliance on renewable energy just won't wash,' he added. "It nowhere near fulfils the volume requirements and all its introduction appears to be doing at the moment is ramping up electricity bills through the Feed in Tariff charges designed to incentivise its greater deployment. One leading energy supplier has recently notified an increase of the Feed in Tariff charge rate it is applying from £1.88 per MWh to £2.42 per MWh. A key Member of the BPF with 11 manufacturing sites up and down the UK, has reported to us that this, together with the lack of UK gas storage facilities (reported at just 8% of capacity this morning), has pushed the company's electricity bills 25% higher than in April 2012'.

ENDS

For all media enquiries, BPF logos and images, please contact Philip Law, Director, Public and Industrial Affairs on 0207 457 5011 or email [email protected]  

Notes for editors:

British Plastics Federation (BPF) is the UK trade association for the plastics industry – representing the whole supply chain including polymer producers, distributors, additives suppliers, machinery manufacturers, processors and recyclers.