The department of energy & climate change (DECC) is to delay the start of the emissions trading phase of the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme, under plans published recently. The proposals are mainly aimed at buying more time to consider fundamental reforms to the CRC. The coalition government is committed to reforming the regime, which started in April, to make it simpler. However, DECC says many of these future reforms would require legislative changes which are not possible within the current CRC timetable. The main proposal is to extend the CRCs introductory phase by 12m so that it runs for 4y until March 2014 rather than March 2013. During this period the 2,800 full CRC participants will have to buy allowances at a fixed price of £12/tonne to cover their annual emissions. To accommodate the extended introductory phase, DECC intends to postpone the requirement to surrender phase two allowances for 1y, from 2013/14 to 2014/15. Participants would still be required to surrender allowances for 2013/14, but this would be under the extended introductory phase.
