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 Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme, or CRC as it is commonly referred to, compels large energy users to make annual payments according to the amount of carbon emissions they make through energy use.

Original plans were to recycle most of the receipts, paying most of the money back to companies who had met certain energy efficiency targets. However, in the 2010 spending review, it was decided not to do this. In other words, CRC became another form of an energy tax.