The Extent to Which Economic Regulation Enables the Transition to a Sustainable Electricity System

The UK’s contribution to the new, legally binding, EU renewables target is to provide 15% of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. In addition, the UK has adopted, via a Climate Change Act, a unilateral and statutory target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 80% from 1990 levels, based on an updated understanding of the consequences of climate change. These statutory targets are extremely ambitious and achieving the 2020 target alone will require a 10 fold increase in the use of renewable energy compared with the situation in 2006.