This year's Annual energy statement sets out the progress the Government has made, how the Government is implementing its energy and climate change strategy and how the UK will develop its approach further. Publishing simultaneously is Electricity demand reduction consultation document (Cm. 8468, ISBN 9780101846820); Electricity demand reduction consultation summary document (Cm. 8492, ISBN 9780101849227); Electricity market reform policy overview (Cm. 8498, ISBN 9780101849821); Energy security strategy (Cm 8466, ISBN 9780101846622); and Statutory security of supply report (HC 688, session 2012-13 ISBN 9780102980691)

The Annual Energy Statement 2013 sets out the government's priorities in delivering the UK's energy policies in the near term: helping households and businesses take control of their energy bills and keep their costs down; unlocking investment in the UK's infrastructure that will support economic growth; playing a leading role in efforts to secure international action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle climate change. It presents plans to make switching simpler and quicker, and a new probe into energy firms' accounts, to make them more transparent on profits and prices, as well as increasing penalties for market manipulation and regularly checking that the market is working properly

Additional written evidence is contained in Volume 3, available on the Committee website at www.parliament.uk/ecc. For Volume 1: Report, see (ISBN 9780215052193)

Includes data on total energy production, consumption, and trade; overviews of petroleum, natural gas, coal, electricity, nuclear energy, renewable energy, international energy, as well as financial and environmental indicators; and data unit conversion tables.

This report finds that the Government is undermining confidence in energy policy and hurting the UK solar industry by rushing through panicked changes to Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) without adequate notice to consumers and installers alike. The tariff rates for domestic-sized solar panels are to be reduced from 43.3p to 21p per kilowatt hour of electricity produced from April 2012. However, installations had to be completed and registered on the scheme by 12 December 2011 to receive the higher 43.3p rate for the full 25 years contract. The suddenness of these changes means that some households have been forced to cancel planned solar panels and face losing their deposits. Many local authority and community renewable energy schemes have been cancelled. Plans to require homes to meet a 'C' rated energy efficiency standard before they can receive solar FiTs will limit access to wealthier households, and 86 per cent of homes would need to be better insulated before they could qualify for the scheme under the Government's proposals. The report calls on the Government to: develop a system to review and adjust FiT rates in an orderly and timely way; consider alternative energy efficiency requirements to avoid devastating the industry; design a 'community tariff' that takes in to account the wider impacts on community groups and social housing projects; investigate how the FiTs scheme could be used to encourage solar panel manufacturing in the UK; require electricity suppliers to provide annual returns on how much FiTs have added to annual energy bills.