UK energy policies ‘complex but new opportunities for businesses’

The UK’s energy policies are complex but there are opportunities for businesses in the market. That’s the view of Richard Tarboton, Executive Director at EY who believes the opportunities for energy companies […]

The UK’s energy policies are complex but there are opportunities for businesses in the market.

That’s the view of Richard Tarboton, Executive Director at EY who believes the opportunities for energy companies and users are around price, volume and time but they need “to find a simple strategy that cuts through all the complexity in the current market”.

Speaking to ELN at the Energy Live 2015 conference in London, he said: “Policies have got very complex, there’s a whole bunch of new opportunities coming through and the basis for a strategy for any company needs to be based around good analytical data.”

 

He believes innovation is key for renewables to attract investors and create jobs after the government announced new energy policies that affect the sector.

Mr Tarboton said: “I think on renewables it’s about where do they find new innovation. We’ve got the new lower cost battery technologies now coming through – the likes of the gigafactory that Tesla is producing but also also how the new technologies that I’ve seen in China bringing down the cost of batteries.

“How those batteries integrate with other renewable energy will be really, really important because that could create a whole new raft of business cases which are viable for investment which create longer term opportunities and I think that’s where the market place needs to move. More towards not just supplying energy but flexing energy.”

 

Although some renewable technologies can grow by themselves others still need some support from the government to be mature, according to Mr Tarboton.

He added: “Some technologies in the renewable sector are getting more and more mature and the subsidies are reducing they’re able to create the right cost point with their technology. Now they’ve gone up in volume, they can compete without subsidy but others are still new and any new technology does need some support to create a level playing field so the government needs to continue to provide support to new innovation but once that innovation comes through at scale, then they need to have a very stable plan to move to maturity.”

Latest Podcast