Health and safety in the new energy economy
Meeting the challenge of major change A report to the HSE Board on 15 December 2010
Abstract
Over the next decade and beyond, the UK is set to take significant steps towards a new energy economy. This will be an economy where the technologies meeting
our electricity, heat and fuel needs have to deliver against three key criteria: sustainability, security and affordability.
In this context, a wide range of emerging energy technologies are expected to play an important role in reshaping the way we satisfy our energy requirements. The extent to which they do so, however, will depend fundamentally on their ability to be harnessed safely.
Compiled by HSE’s Emerging Energy Technologies Programme, this report provides a current assessment of the health and safety hazards that key emerging energy technologies could pose, both to workers and to the public at large. (Nuclear energy technologies fall outside the scope of this report.) But it also highlights how an appropriate framework can be, and is being, put in place to help ensure that these hazards are managed and controlled effectively – an essential
element in enabling the technologies to make a major contribution to the UK’s energy future.
Contains public sector information published by the Health and Safety Executive and licensed under the Open Government Licence
