AIC challenging proposed energy efficiency targets for UK compound feed makers

19-Jul-2023 - Last updated on 10-Feb-2024 at 20:00 GMT

The AIC is encouraging its feed industry members to engage with its efforts to build a counter proposal to the UK government’s proposed energy efficiency targets for compound feed manufacturing.

Last week saw the newly established Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) open the target setting process for the additional new Climate Change Agreement (CCA) target period - January to December 2024 - brought about by the extension of the current CCA scheme, which was announced in March 2023.

The sector target suggested by DESNZ would be a relative energy reduction of 5.5% relative to a 2018 baseline by the end of 2024. It would apply to all businesses with CCAs for manufacturing compound feed.

The CCA scheme, first established in 2001, aims at making energy and carbon savings through energy efficiency targets whilst also helping to reduce energy costs in eligible industrial sectors by providing a significant discount to participating businesses on the Climate Change Levy (CCL) paid.

The targets are designed to provide a basis on which UK organizations can make improvements to the energy efficiency of their facilities over a set period, ensuring their contribution to UK-wide goals, in return for reduced rates of CCL on their energy bills.

Mill performance data

A spokesperson for the Agricultural Industries Confederation (AIC) told us it “is taking the opportunity to submit a counter proposal which will be based on existing mill performance data taken from across the sector, rather than using figures extrapolated from the 2018 baseline to set a target, as proposed by the DESNZ.”

The trade body and the scheme administrators, SLR Consulting, will be requesting information, still to be specified by DESNZ, from feed mill operators with current CCAs in place relating to energy efficiency and the throughput of their feed mills as well as equipment.

"Such data will help to build the case for the counter proposal."

The AIC is also asking for an extension of the deadline imposed by the government for industry responses; it maintains that the current August 7, 2023 due date is extremely tight.

Energy supply and security

UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, split up the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in February this year, creating a new department focused on energy supply and security: DESNZ.

The reasons cited for the restructuring were the changed domestic and global landscape, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine having shaken the energy sector in the UK, but also the need for the UK to significantly speed up its decarbonization efforts to achieve net zero emissions targets by 2050.