CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released a formal update on the CRC Energy Efficiency scheme. A summary of the key points and changes follow below. (Please be aware that these are constantly changing.)

The Carbon Reduction Commitment has now been renamed the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme.

If you consumed more than 6,000MWh of Half Hourly electricity during 2008 you qualify as a ‘Full Participant’ in the scheme. You are required to disclose a list of all your Half Hourly Meters and disclose itemised Half Hourly and AMR Metered electricity usage.

• If your organisation also consumed more than 73,000kWh of gas during 2008 you qualify as a ‘Full Participant’.

Please note that some alternative fuels also need to be considered for CRC qualification.

If you consumed less than 6,000MWh of Half Hourly electricity during 2008 you qualify NOT as a Full Participant but as an organisation that has to make an ‘Information Disclosure’. Although a non participant in the scheme, you are required to disclose a list of all your Half Hourly Meters and disclose itemised Half Hourly electricity usage.

Half Hourly meters (HHM’s) measure and report electricity consumption by the half hour or less. Electricity suppliers use this information to calculate your bill. There are five types of HHM’s covered by the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. These are:

- Mandatory HHM’s (which are HHM’s required to be installed in certain situations)
- Voluntary HHM’s
- Half Hourly Light Meters
- Dynamic pseudo HH unmetered supply
- Automatic Meter Reading (AMR’s also know as ‘Smart Meters’)

Your electricity supplier will be able to give you electricity consumption data for most of these meters but will not necessarily know if you have any AMR’s, and they are not included in the list at the end of the environment agency letter sent out in November 2009. It is your responsibility to identify them, collect their consumption data and include this within your 2008 qualification consumption. This data can be managed by LSI.

• The Registration Period starts in 4 months time and is between the beginning of April 2010 to the end of September 2010. Once registered, registrants will have their own CRC Login. Again, LSI can assist your company by using your account to submit your electrical consumption data.

• The CRC fees payable under the scheme have recently changed with the introduction of an annual fee, as shown below.

There have been some new exemptions for participating in the new CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme:

- Sole Traders are fully exempt from CRC.

- Some international companies with certain types of tax exemptions are fully exempt from CRC.

- Some central government departments are fully exempt, and

- Organisations with no HH meters in their ownership on 31/12/2009 are fully exempt from the CRC Scheme.

As part of the registration process, organisations will need to identify Significant Group Undertakings – (formally known as Principal Subsidiaries) i.e. any legally defined subsidiary that would have qualified for the scheme in its own right were it not part of its group. Where a participant so chooses, it will be able to nominate any Significant Group Undertaking (SGU) that it wishes to disaggregate from its group for the purposes of CRC.

Franchisee’s are now legally required to identify HH meters and provide “reasonable information & assistance to their Franchisor”.

For Housing Associations, additional guidance has been published on supplies to communal areas or shared use areas.

Full guidance for registration is now available on the Environmental Agency’s CRC section on their website www.environment-agency.gov.uk/business/topics/pollution/98263.aspx

Please contact Jay Stirrett if you would like to receive further information regarding any of these issues or advice on the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme; jay@lsiutilitybroker.co.uk

Note: Please keep an eye out for CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Registration/Evidence Packs that are expected any time soon.