Going green - New technologies and behaviour change for net zero

In addition, the introduction of carbon pricing in the electricity sector through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and the UK Carbon Price Support mechanism quickened the pace of the transition away from coal.5 The Renewables Obligation and Contracts for Difference schemes have also encouraged investment in renewables, driving down the cost of wind and solar to the point that renewables are now the. [...] The CERT scheme required electricity and gas suppliers to reduce the carbon emissions within domestic properties, which they did primarily through the installation of insulation and energy efficient lighting.31 32 The replacement of the CERT with the Energy Company Obligation has seen a significant decline in the number of measures installed by suppliers each year.33 In addition, as this chapter w. [...] This figure, combined with the overall growth in the number of ULEVs over the past decades, suggests the grant mechanism has contributed to kickstarting the market and bringing down the cost of electric vehicles. [...] The Public Accounts Committee stated that the scheme “underperformed badly”, while the National Audit Office declared that the scheme “delivered to an over-ambitious timetable and was not executed to an acceptable standard”.8081 The one silver lining of the GHG was the performance of the Local Authority Delivery (LAD) scheme, which has been a major success. [...] This difference is likely due to the disparities in price: the difference in cost between the petrol car and the EV was almost twice that of the petrol car and the hybrid.