About the programme

The Programme is HSE’s corporate (non-nuclear) response to the two long-term energy challenges facing the UK, including:

• tackling climate change by reducing carbon dioxide emissions to meet legally binding targets; and
• ensuring secure, clean and affordable energy in the face of increasingly uncertain supply.

The government’s high-level strategy for dealing with the challenges is set out in the Energy White Paper 2007. The legislative aspects of this strategy are introduced in the Energy Act 2008. The Department for Energy and Climate Change will oversee the implementation.

Before the White Paper and Act the government launched an energy review for which, in 2006, HSE prepared an expert report. This concluded that HSE’s regulatory framework is sufficiently comprehensive and flexible enough to deal with new risks and hazards achieving sensible risk management. Specific new regulatory controls may be required in due course if these risks merit such action.

This is an important emerging regulatory and policy area for HSE because of the novelty, scale and diversity of the hazards presented by the energy programme and gaps in regulatory application. HSE has an active partnership with DECC, the department driving the energy agenda, to achieve its aim of responsible regulation of the emerging energy sectors¹.

The programme takes, as its starting point, the 2006 Expert Report to the Energy Review. This Report identified six parts to the new energy agenda, five of which (ie with the exception of the nuclear agenda) form the industry sector work streams in this programme.

The EET Programme will bring together the ongoing work and any future projects to produce (and to share with our key regulatory partners):

1. a coherent organisational² strategy for HSE’s regulation of the emerging energy technologies; and
2. guidance to enable HSE's divisions to plan and deliver against this strategy. 

• The programme will have two phases. The first phase will report on the current status of the work streams and present design options for the EET strategies. The second phase will deliver the required organisational strategies and necessary guidance.

Footnotes

1. A number of other departments also have major interest in developments in this energy sector and are therefore key stakeholders in the EET programme: the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BIS); DEFRA; CLG; and the devolved administrations. The Environment Agency (EA) and Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) have interests under COMAH and environmental regulations.

2. Key organisational elements in this programme are: regulatory, intervention, knowledge, and resource