Any household supplier will be able to buy it on the day-ahead wholesale market. This is the biggest change for almost a decade in the UK’s electricity market. Ed Miliband has pledged to force the the Big 6 to auction all of their electricity on the open market. It will buy all the electricity required for its customers from the same source.
Solarcentury
The company I founded in 1998 to design and supply solar energy solutions for the built environment. Solarcentury
Solar Aid
The charity I founded in 2006, with a 5% contribution of Solarcentury profits, to help deliver solar lighting to Africa. Solar Aid
Archive for the ‘Coal’ Category
SSE breaks rank to offer 100% of its electricity on the wholesale market.
October 11, 2011 Coal, GasScottish Power shelves flagship UK CCS project.
October 6, 2011 Climate, CoalThe £1bn price tag wasn’t enough to make the Longannet project in Scotland project economically tenable, the Guardian reports. Yet more public funding would be needed.
CCS falling by wayside, IEA tells energy ministers.
September 22, 2011 Climate, CoalThe financial crisis and weakening political will means global momentum has been lost on CCS, the IEA says at a CCS review meeting in Beijing. The IEA estimates the 2C goal requires 1,500 large-scale CCS projects around the world by 2035 (20% of the roadmap to 2C). Only 74 have been announced. China should have 270 by 2035. It has six at the planning stage. Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, says CCS is a “last resort” for China.
Four Welsh coal miners die in a mine disaster.
September 16, 2011 CoalPolice examine what bosses knew about safety conditions in the colliery, in terms of water-filled nearby abandoned mineshafts.
EDF CEO acknowledges public mistrust in big energy companies.
September 15, 2011 Clean Energy, Coal, Gas, NuclearIn joining all the other five in announcing electricity and prices rises, de Rivaz acknowledges the public’s abiding mistrust of the Big Six. He says that a formal investigation by the Competition Commission may be the only way to fix the problem. “If a Competition Commission inquiry is decided with the objective to build trust, then it is a step that should be taken. As a fair company, we have nothing to hide,”
Glencore: first CSR report reveals dozens of fatalities.
September 7, 2011 CoalThe mining and commodities company suffered 56 deaths in its 2008-10 operations and been subject to six-figure fines for environmental breaches, its first ever corporate responsibility report reveals.
Mongolia set for triple-listing $3bn coal IPO.
August 31, 2011 Coal, FinanceThe Mongolian government is heading for an unusual listing of its vast Tavan Tolgoi coal deposit on three exchanges: London, Hong Kong and Ulan Bator. If it incorporates the company Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi in London, it will go straight into the FTSE 100. Goldman Sachs heads the cast of investment banks doing the deal.
Coal deals burn investors: Bloomberg.
August 31, 2011 CoalA Peabody coal-mining acquisition leads a clutch of such coal deals that have subsequently tanked, Bloomberg notes. The rationale – hopes that costs will continue to rise from already high levels on Chinese steel demand – is not working.
EPA plans mean many new US coal plants may never be built.
August 29, 2011 CoalNew EPA regulations could force up to 20 per cent of US coal plants to shut down, according to the coal industry. The American Legislative Exchange Council talks of an impending upheaval as a “train wreck” of lost jobs, higher prices and blackouts. The Congressional Research Office is more relaxed.
Big 6 write down £600m in coal assets.
August 22, 2011 CoalEU CO2 measures mean falling profitability of coal stations in the medium-term. EDF Energy has booked a £340m write-down on its Cottam and West Burton coal-fired power stations. RWE npower and Eon have writedowns too.
Essar Energy shares fall as Indian government witholds permission to develop coal reserves.
August 22, 2011 Coal, FinanceThe reserves in question lie below thick rainforest. Essar now cannot mine coal in time for a power plant to use, and will have to buy on the open market.
Self-inflicted political backlash now threatens Big 6s’ viability, analysts believe.
August 17, 2011 Clean Energy, Coal, Gas, NuclearThe FT reports that analysts think the Big 6 energy companies’ integrated models are now under serious threat. Much of the attacking by politicians is self inflicted. Ofgem is looking at forcing the Big 6 to auction 20% of their electricity, and Labour 100%. This when £200bn must be invested in new energy infrastructure by 2020.
Threat of power outages amid soaring temperatures in Houston.
August 4, 2011 Climate, Coal, Gas, NuclearTexas declares an “energy emergency” for the fifth time this year. Soaring afternoon temperatures push wholesale prices to the legal cap of $3,000 per megawatt-hour. The threat of power outages in Houston, the energy capital of the world, is a potent talisman for the fragility of ageing US energy infrastructure.
“Unusable reserves: it’s hot air, say analysts”.
July 31, 2011 Climate, Coal, Finance, Gas, OilSo the headline in the FT reads for an article relaying the responses of analysts and fund managers to the CarbonTracker report. Says one analyst: “I think it’s a bollocks subject. I’m not interested in this kind of subject. I think this is complete hot air.” Says a fund manager: “We apply our own judgment as to what is technically feasible, we don’t look at what is legally feasible. There are no restrictions on companies at the moment in terms of the amount of oil and gas that they can produce.”
Renewables receive only a tenth the subsidies of fossil fuels.
July 29, 2011 Clean Energy, Coal, Gas, OilBloomberg New Energy Finance report that governments last year gave $43 billion to $46 billion of support to renewable energy through tax credits, feed-in tariffs and alternative energy credits. $557 billion went to fossil fuels in 2008, the International Energy Agency said last month.
MPs tell Big 6 energy companies to stop mis-selling and compensate victims.
July 25, 2011 Coal, Gas, NuclearThe Commons energy select committee wants to see voluntary reparations to consumers who have been sold needlessly high tariffs on the doorstep as a result of what they call “Del Boy” tactics. Ofgem’s investigations of four of the Big 6 are ongoing.
Indonesian coal boom massively enrichs the country’s elite.
July 22, 2011 CoalThe number of Indonesian billionaires doubled last year to more than 20 – almost all of them commodities tycoons, the FT reports. Extractive industries – mainly coal, oil and gas – are now about a third of Indonesia’s economy. Tax income from coal mining will reach $7bn in 2011.
Mayor Bloomberg donates $50m to campaign to eliminate coal power plants.
July 21, 2011 Climate, CoalThe Sierra Club is the beneficiary and will use the money in its Beyond Coal campaign, which has helped block the construction of 153 new coal-fired power plants across the States since 2002. The campaign will expand from 15 to 45 states, plus the District of Columbia. The aim will be to shut a third of the c. 400 US coal plants by 2020.
Most moaned-about energy companies should be “named and shamed”.
July 21, 2011 Coal, GasSo says Rowena Mason of the Daily Telegraph. The banking ombudsman publishes such a league table, but the energy ombudsman does not yet.
“Rising energy costs move up political agenda”.
July 21, 2011 Clean Energy, Coal, GasDavid Blair reports in the FT that SSE’s price rise, the third of the Big 6, means that 6% of the median post-tax salary now goes on the average dual-fuel £1,265 domestic energy bills.
Does carbon accounting doom the London financial markets to fail again?
July 20, 2011 Climate, Coal, Finance, Gas, OilJohn Elkington on the CarbonTracker report: “Having written my first report on climate change in 1978, I have been dutifully tracking the evolving science for half a lifetime, but only on Friday 15 July 2011 did I truly feel that the climate, carbon and financial agendas had been spot-welded in a way that potentially brings all of this right home to people such as asset owners, rating agencies, brokers, analysts, investment bankers, accountants, data providers and financial regulators.”