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WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT BY DEPUTY S.Y. MÉZEC OF ST. HELIER
ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON TUESDAY 14TH JUNE 2016
Question
What plans does the Minister have to continue to support energy conservation, including by at least maintaining the current budget for energy grants?
Answer
The Minister has set out his commitment to energy conservation in detail in Pathway 2050: an Energy Plan[1] for Jersey which was agreed by the States Assembly in May 2014. The goal of the Plan is to deliver secure, affordable and sustainable energy for Jersey within an ambitious framework of targeted reductions in Jersey's carbon emissions.
One of the three key policy areas of the Energy Plan is around demand management as follows The Minister for Planning and Environment, working with other relevant Ministers and the Energy Partnership, will develop and implement the actions and work streams that will reduce energy demand through a series of interventions across all emissions sectors according to identified targets'. Thus the commitment to energy conservation is clear and remains a priority for me.
Since the agreement of the Energy Plan, it has been implemented by my department in conjunction with others who hold responsibility for specific areas (e.g. transport) and the Year One report can be found on www.gov.je and it outlines detailed progress against all the action statements[2]. Action statements 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8 particularly refer to commitments around energy conservation in the built environment. Action statements 11 to 15 refer to progress in energy conservation measures for the transport sector, another significant contributor to local energy consumption and emissions. Key areas of progress around energy efficiency in recent years include a States of Jersey led de-carbonisation programme that comprised of energy efficiency improvements in 4,463 social housing units and 1,727 private and rental units occupied by vulnerable Islanders, through energy efficiency grants. Other areas include significantly improved building-bye laws with a wider reach through a requirement for consequential improvements alongside more stringent targets for new builds.
The Department is transparently reporting energy use and consequent emissions through a dedicated infographic that allows interrogation of the information[3] which the Deputy might find interesting.
Going forward, I have had to consider the delivery of the Energy Plan in the context of both the MTFP1 the MTFP2. The Deputy has asked specifically about the current plans for energy grants and I believe that this refers to the previous programme of 100% energy efficiency grants that were offered to vulnerable people between 2009 and 2015. As mentioned above, this programme began before the agreement of the Energy Plan and actively assisted 1,727 householders.
The Energy Plan had already outlined how the budget for this energy efficiency programme was to be reallocated to delivery all of the action statements within the Plan in order to achieve the wide range of outcomes in the Plan, rather than just the narrow focus of the grant scheme. Thus the Energy Plan had already signalled the intent that the energy efficiency programme would be scaled back to release budget and resource to deliver the other action statements in the Plan. This was considered reasonable given that the target group of vulnerable islanders was finite and many people had been helped over the scheme. There was an intention to keep a core scheme available for entrants into that sector.
However, it was agreed in the States Strategic Plan that government should prioritise investment in Health, Education, Infrastructure and Economic Growth. So we are reducing costs, increasing efficiency and reprioritising our spending. As a result of this strategy departments have been looking for savings and efficiencies. A service review was carried out across the department's energy portfolio and the following savings were made:
- a service redesign identified that some action statements can be delivered differently;
- ceasing the reduced programme of grants to the socially vulnerable from the end of 2015; and
- staff reductions in connection with the administration of the grant programme.
Therefore the Deputy will note that the reduced energy efficiency grant programme for domestic properties ceased at the end of 2015 in line with the States agreed MTFP.
There remains some budget to continue to run the parallel grant programme for not-for-profit community buildings who provide residential and day care services for vulnerable islanders. This programme has been active since 2010 and has helped improve over 30 community buildings to date. It is a value for money way to assist the community with energy efficiency – examples of organisation that the programme has helped includes The Jersey Cheshire Home and the Little Sisters of the Poor residential care homes; a complete review of the programme to date will be available shortly from my Department and I would be happy to ensure that the Deputy personally receives a copy.