Reuters reports that an environmental consulting firm has concluded about 40% of the British firms that are supposed to register for the UK’s new Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRCEES) don’t even know they have an obligation to do so and are likely to miss the September 30 registration deadline.
The CRCEES launched on April 1 and affects approximately 20,000 U.K. businesses, including banks, hotels, and schools, as well as industries. This blog noted before the launch that the UK program can be complicated despite efforts to make it simple. The Users Guide (PDF) published by the UK Environment Agency tries to explain the program, including who must register, but apparently figuring it out isn’t as easy as designers might have hoped.
According to Reuters, the study by WSP Environment & Energy concluded that there was a lack of awareness and engagement among participants about the CRCEES.
Using a worst-case scenario analysis, WSP said some 6,000 of the 15,000 lower energy users affected by the scheme, firms that "had at least one half-hour electricity meter settled on the half-hourly market across the whole organization" in 2008 but consumer less than 6,000 megawatt hours, will fail to make the required information declaration to the agency by September 30.
The fine for lower energy users who miss the deadline is a one-time ₤500 (~$764.14 USD). But another 1500 heavy energy users also will miss the registration deadline and they face fines of ₤5000 (~$7,641.50 USD) plus ₤500 per day for up to 60 days.
It’s unclear whether those fines actually will be levied. The U.K. Environment Agency may need to launch a targeted awareness campaign first. But this also is a lesson that it’s one thing to have deadlines and quite another to get everyone on board.
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