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Appendix: The costs of EU energy lawsCalculations were made using Government Impact Assessments (IAs), official documentsproduced by Government departments to accompany new regulations, stating how far thespecific recommended policy meets stated objectives and quantifying the potential costsand administrative burdens.However, despite this impressive resource, it is important to note that there are limitationsto using IAs. There has been a noted failure by the Government to place all the IAs in onerepository and previous attempts to compile such a collection have had notable omissions.In addition there are also inconsistencies in compiling IAs, both over time and betweendepartments. It is important to also note that these costs are estimates, though they arederived from Government assessments and analysis.IAs provide a range of different figures in their reports, including minimum cost, maximumcost and estimated cost. We have calculated the net costs for both the minimumand maximum estimates. This study is based on the collection of IAs available on theGov.uk website and a detailed search for IAs on environmental and energy policy on variousdepartmental websites and the National Archives. This detailed search for IAs of all Directivesthat have been highlighted by EIIs and the Energy sector and all IAs cited on the DG Energylist was carried out between 1 February and 1 April 2014. While we recognise that this mightmean that not all relevant IAs have been selected, it should account for the vast majorityof relevant laws and include the most expensive and intrusive regulations, however werecognise that due to these limitations our final figures may under-estimate the cost ofenergy-related regulation.It is important to also note that all of the EU laws cited do not affect all businesses in thesame way. Some laws clearly only have an impact on certain industries. It should also benoted that different IAs can look at the same EU directive from various different perspectives(multiple IAs since 2008 have looked at the impact of the Energy Products Directive forexample). This, however, is not a disadvantage. In fact adding together multiple IAs on thesame regulation gives a better idea of the total cost of that regulation. This approach allowsus to get a better estimate of the costs/benefits that stem from each rule and regulation. Thecosts and benefits are extracted from the option on the IA chosen by the British Governmentas the right course of action (as stated in the IA or on the Government’s own websites).It is also worth pointing out that there are sometimes some variations in where theinformation is placed on a sheet, despite the standard layout that IAs have. When noinformation is provided on the number of years annual costs will be paid for, this is recordedas ‘on-going’. It is possible that, had the EU not introduced these laws then the UK wouldhave chosen to legislate in these areas anyway, but it is worth pointing out that British lawsare more likely to offer a better cost/benefit ratio.Energy Policyand the EU56