The forum will discuss potential solutions that the sector could take to start reducing emissions now and, for the longer term, will look to create a plan or roadmap to roll out future clean energy infrastructure for the industry, the UK’s department of transport said in a press release.
The UK has established the Freight Energy Forum to support the freight sector in decarbonising and ensuring long-term sustainability.
The forum will bring together expertise from the energy and freight industries to support the sector across all modes of transport to reach net zero by 2050.
The forum aims to create high-skilled jobs across the UK.
The forum will bring together expertise and senior representatives from across the energy and freight industries, including individual operating companies, national organisations, and sector associations, such as the Road Haulage Association, Logistics UK, and National Grid.
The forum’s topics of focus include assessing the supply and demand of the energy the freight sector will need; examining the types of energy infrastructure that will be required to provide refuelling or recharging; and identifying where energy and infrastructure will be needed across the regions and locations, such as motorway service areas, warehouses, rail freight terminals, airports, ports, and beyond.
The forum will be technology-neutral, meaning that it will look at a range of potential solutions for the freight sector and not prioritise one type of technology.
Transport minister Richard Holden said: “We recognise that the transition to clean fuels is one of the biggest challenges facing the freight sector and we are committed to delivering a strong future for the sector that will help create good long-term jobs.
“Clean energy supplies and infrastructure are critical to the drive for a cleaner freight sector and the Freight Energy Forum will address those longer-term challenges across the whole industry.”
The forum intends to create high-skilled, highly-paid jobs across the UK by giving the industry greater certainty to invest in sustainable modes of freight transport and the supporting energy infrastructure needed to transition to net zero, in turn supporting the growth of the economy.
The government’s Future of Freight plan was published in June 2022 and sets out how the UK government can deliver a cost-efficient, reliable, resilient, and environmentally sustainable freight sector. One of the five priority areas it identified to achieve this goal was to establish this forum to help enable the transition to net zero.
Meeting quarterly, the forum aims to look to produce several items from its meetings including a roadmap plan outlining the roll out of clean energy infrastructure for the freight sector. The forum is intended to review into the regulatory barriers to implementing zero carbon energy infrastructure, including where the planning system makes the installation of this infrastructure difficult and solutions to removing these obstacles, added the release.
The Freight Energy Forum is dedicated towards actions to address regional and local differences in the coverage of zero carbon energy infrastructure and understanding where the zero-carbon energy infrastructure will be needed, making sure there’s good regional coverage and that the planning system allows for the infrastructure to be built. It will assess energy supply and demand across all types of freight transport and identify solutions that can help the entire freight sector to start reducing emissions immediately and increase the speed of transition to net zero.
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