I never realised until now what a nightmare the Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) Energy Efficiency Scheme has become. Not only is its name too long, its rulebook is too - a cool 257 pages to be precise.

OK, the scheme only affects bigger clients – those with usage of over 6,000 MWh in half-hourly billed electricity – but boy, is it complicated. And where it overlaps with other schemes, like Climate Change Agreements (CCAs) and the European Unions Emissions Trading Scheme (EUETS), it can sometimes become almost unfathomable.

The scary thing is that everyone in the scheme not only has to report their energy usage each year, but must also retain an ‘evidence pack’ showing from where all the information has been derived, and this will be audited (not might be audited) every three years. Interestingly, the document which describes the evidence pack has itself some 35 pages of tables in it!

So, having just gone through one of these audits, and despite being a what one would describe as an energy ‘expert’, I cannot help but feel very sorry for you ‘non-experts’ out there who are yet to go through this.

Well, you know who you can call for advice….