The Energy Institute said that the industry is “clear” that the government’s goal of meeting targets to use entirely clean power by the end of the decade “faces considerable hurdles”.
Only 4% of the energy professionals polled in its latest annual survey were confident that the UK will reach net zero by 2050, while just 15% believe the UK will meet or exceed 2035 carbon emissions reduction goals.
“There is low confidence among energy professionals that the UK will meet its 2035 and 2050 carbon targets,” the Energy Institute said in its latest energy barometer.
“Even with encouraging early actions and signals from the new government, confidence in meeting the UK’s emission reduction targets is low.”
Energy policy must be driven by “evidence and expertise” more than politics, the Energy Institute concluded in its report.
Two-thirds of respondents said policy should be “more evidence-based”, calling for greater “interaction” between Whitehall and industry.
Nearly the same proportion of the industry consider policy to be “determinant” in the UK energy system, more so than the main drivers of the energy crisis, which were the war on Ukraine and the Covid pandemic.
The Energy Institute’s latest energy barometer is reflective of a significant shift in UK energy policy since the 2024 general election towards the “energy trilemma”.
“Like most developed economies, the UK still has much to do to implement its ambitious commitments to avert the worse impacts of climate change,” the institute said.
Its latest annual lowdown on the energy sector found that solutions to the “energy trilemma” of security, sustainability and affordability are increasingly converging, rather than competing.
“Energy security continues to be seen by survey respondents as one of the greatest challenges facing the UK, but it is no longer defined by simply securing fossil fuel supplies,” it said.
Energy efficiency is one area where the fossil fuel and renewable energy industries can converge in particular, with the Energy Institute calling it the “stand-out solution”.
In its latest barometer of the energy industry, the institute said, energy efficiency “stands out as the most immediate and impactful solution”.
For the first time in ten years, grid and energy infrastructure has also become the “foremost concern”, the institute added.
Its poll found that 84% of respondents acknowledged decarbonising the electricity grid to be the biggest “success story” of the past decade.
However, the industry now views grid and infrastructure to be the “biggest energy-related challenge” facing the UK, according to the report.
“Enhancing the grid and speeding up connection times are singled out as the overriding priorities for clean power out to 2030, by some considerable margin,” the report said.
The shift in focus towards the grid draws attention away from the energy industry and towards the downstream transportation and heating sectors.
The Energy Institute said electrification of the economy will require “enabling infrastructure and incentives for low carbon transport and heating”.
“Clean power alone will not achieve the UK’s energy goals without the simultaneous electrification across the economy,” it said in its latest barometer.
The barometer showed 61% of respondents said the expansion of electric vehicle charging infrastructure was a top priority.
Meanwhile, the UK’s shift to low-carbon heating “remains challenging”, the institute said, adding that these industries have called for “economic incentives” and “enabling policies” to make heat pumps more affordable and accessible.
