Renewable energy deep dive biannual recommendations update 3 - Strategy

Recommendation

Our Vision is for Wales to generate renewable energy to at least fully meet our energy needs and utilise surplus generation to tackle the nature and climate emergencies. We will accelerate actions to reduce energy demand and maximise local ownership retaining economic and social benefits in Wales.

Next steps towards completion

This recommendation is complete. We will continue to take forward the recommendations from the Renewable Energy Deep Dive.

Recommendation    

We will scale up local energy plans to create a national energy plan by 2024, mapping out future energy demand and supply for all parts of Wales to identify gaps to enable us to plan for a system that is flexible and smart - matching local renewable energy generation with energy demand.

Key highlights / milestones    

• The development of the Local Area Energy Plans (LAEP) is on schedule for completion by end of March 2024. At this point, the LAEPs will be scaled up to form regional and national views.
• The scaled up plans will form the basis of our National Energy Plan, also drawing on insights from other strategic energy planning and policy evidence. For example, Future Energy Grids for Wales, the Heat Strategy and the Energy Targets review.  

Next steps towards completion

• Scale up LAEPs
• Determine scope of National Energy Plan (NEP)
• Agree format and structure of NEP report
• Agree approach to engagement and consultation 
• Publish NEP by end of 2024

Recommendation    

Our Net Zero Wales public engagement and behaviour change plans will help citizens to take action to reduce demand, improve energy efficiency and use energy in a way which supports our vision.

Key highlights / milestones    

Significant progress has been made on the delivery of this public engagement programme (acknowledged by the Climate Change Committee in their June 2023 Wales progress report).

Highlights include: 

• Publishing the new national Climate Action Wales public engagement strategy in July 2023.
• Delivering a new Climate Action Wales Digital Hub (website) and national campaign to encourage citizens to make green choices (including actions to reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency within homes).
• Introducing a new 3-year biannual Climate Survey as a repeatable method for tracking people’s attitudes and behaviours connected to action on climate change. Delivering the Wales Climate Week 2023 virtual conference (featuring 28 sessions and 4,162 live views), and introducing a new Welsh Government community engagement fund (which supported 39 organisations to hold Climate Conversations events with communities across Wales to gather evidence for a consultation on a new Just Transition framework).
   

Next steps towards completion

Over the next 6 months, the focus will be on delivering the commitments made in the new Climate Action Wales public engagement Strategy, including:

• On-going delivery of the Climate Action Wales campaign and promotion of the Digital Hub. 
• Building a prioritised timeline for the introduction of policy levers to overcome barriers to citizen action on climate change.
• Implementation of the second wave of the 2023/24 biannual Climate Survey, including publication of the key findings. 
• Beginning a review of our approach to citizen and stakeholder engagement and the opportunity to build on Wales Climate Week and the Climate Conversations community engagement fund.
• Evaluating programme impact through a new evaluation framework to ensure that the outcomes measured link to emissions reduction targets set out in our net zero pathways. 

Recommendation    

We want to see an easy to access advice service set up to help people improve the energy efficiency and smart performance of their homes and businesses as well as a ready supply of trusted suppliers and installers of low carbon heating systems in Wales. We will scope additional actions as we develop our future Warm Homes Programme and Heat Strategy.

Key highlights / milestones  

Warm Homes Programme

• We published our policy statement in June 2023, which informed the specification for a new service, consisting of 3 lots: an independent advice service, a deliver agent and a quality assessor function.  
• The advice service will provide impartial advice to all on the steps they can take to use energy more efficiently and further resources and potential sources of funding where applicable.

Public engagement

• See the update to recommendation 3.

Heat Strategy

• We published our consultation document on the Heat Strategy in Summer 2023. The consultation closed on 8 November 2023.

Next steps towards completion

Warm Homes Programme

• Mobilisation and integration of the service. A full public service will be launched on 1 April 2024.
• Once launched, the advice service will continue to make links with partners locally and nationally, and with GB-wide energy efficiency and fuel poverty schemes, to leverage funding into Wales and support as many households as possible.

Heat Strategy

• We will publish our consultation response, final heat strategy and associated action plan in Spring 2024.