Research on competitiveness impacts of carbon policies on UK energy-intensive industrial sectors to 2030

Descriptions

The project has three main aims: 1.Estimate the contributing factors of current and future electricity prices faced by UK firms and key international competitors. Building on existing analysis (e.g. CCC analysis of UK prices and ICF’s assessment of international prices or other relevant sources), a.Estimate the 2015 electricity prices faced by manufacturing sectors in UK vs key international competitors. Include break down electricity prices into constituent parts for comparison, e.g. wholesale costs, transmission and distribution, government policy costs etc, and take into account any exemption/compensations schemes. In addition, specify the extent that UK situation has changed in the first half of 2016 – specifically with respect to compensation schemes. b.Project, based on current understanding of future energy costs and carbon policies, the constituent parts of electricity prices that manufacturing sector may face in UK and key international countries in 2020 and 2030. 2.Assess the direct impact of the EU Emission Trading System (ETS) on UK firms. Assess the direct impact that the EU ETS has had on UK manufacturing sectors costs, including impact of free allocation and build-up of surplus allowances. Assess what the impact of the ETS may be to 2030 given current proposals including the European Commission’s, ENVI and UK-France, and assuming the UK remains within the ETS. Provide comparative analysis of the results with those published by other market analysis, eg. Sandbag and Climate Strategies. 3.Develop deep-dive narratives around certain sectors that have experienced significant contractions in production. Drawing on existing analysis, assess the state of the UK markets, causes of these contractions, impact on investment etc – and specifically how much of this is due to market forces and what can be attributable to climate change policies. The CCC will be analysing internally the potential for energy efficiency to reduce costs for UK firms, and so we will not require this to be covered by the requested research.