Two-thirds of organisations still to register for CRC as deadline looms

August 12, 2010

Up to 70% of the public sector organisations and large businesses obliged to register for the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme have yet to do so, despite there being less than 50 days to go before the 30 September deadline.

The Environment Agency, which is administering the scheme in the UK, said 1,229 organisations had registered so far, with a combined energy use of 40,000,000 MwH electricity a year. This accounts for half of the electricity consumption expected to be included within the scheme.

Original projections suggested that 5,000 organisations would be caught by the scheme. This figure has now been revised down to between 3,000 and 4,000 to take into account that many businesses that qualify for the CRC are owned by larger conglomerates incorporating multiple businesses.

Tony Grayling, head of climate change and sustainable development at the Environment Agency, said: “Around a third of organisations that we expect to register for the CRC scheme have registered well in advance of the deadline. We would urge the remaining businesses to sign up now, and not leave registration to the last minute.”

Under the scheme, all public and private sector organisations that had at least one half-hourly electricity meter (a meter that records energy use every 30 minutes) settled on the half hourly market during 2008 must register as a participant or make an information disclosure before the deadline. This accounts for approximately 20,000 large organisations.

The 3,000-4,000 participants in the scheme are identified by their 2008 electricity supplies – if the organisation has a half-hourly electricity meter and consumed at least 6,000 Megawatt hours of qualifying electricity through all of its meters during 2008 (equivalent to an annual electricity bill of around £500,000), then it will need to participate in the scheme by monitoring energy consumption and purchasing allowances.

If the organisation has a half-hourly electricity meter but consumed less than this amount of electricity, it needs to make an information disclosure via the CRC Registry on the Environment Agency’s website. These organisations do not have to monitor and report their annual energy use or purchase allowances.