Follow us on Social Media
Hazardex 2021 Conference Paper - An enabling regulatory framework to deliver Net Zero


Simon Wood, Environment, Health & Safety Specialist of UKPIA, will be speaking about the importance of a responsive and flexible role for regulators to enable the transition towards a Net-Zero UK.

The changing face of the energy and fuels sector is likely to see the emergence of a suite of new processes, feedstocks and business models that will in turn come with new safety challenges and methods to manage the risks of their use. Regulators will have a central role in enabling deployment of new technologies to deliver Net-Zero. As companies may deliver fundamentally new ways of producing and supplying their products, consistency, capability and agility is required from regulators.

Hydrogen offers one such example, with the expectation that it will be one of the key energy vectors for uses as widespread as domestic heating, to industry to transport in Net-Zero scenarios. Hydrogen offers particular challenges as a highly reactive element that may move out of the highly specialist applications into transmissions systems that were not designed for it. Each application may need its own form of regulation to enable safe deployment that can be a positive contributor to carbon reductions. There will be a challenge for industry and regulators to work together to manage such challenges.

Simon Wood

As Environment, Health and Safety Specialist, Simon Wood provides UKPIA members with expert advice on regulatory developments for environmental, process safety and occupational health and safety topics across the downstream oil sector. Simon Joined UKPIA in January 2020 having previously gained experience with EDF Energy and the British Standards Institution developing and deploying strategies to deliver consensus through improved stakeholder understanding during negotiations.