Guardian: “The government’s controversial electricity market reform (EMR) programme has been dealt a serious blow with the resignation of the top civil servant working on the scheme.” Read more
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
Top official working on EMR resigns as analyst warns HMG off gas reliance.
UK energy prices: most inflation is not due to green energy, but gas.
Guardian: “The simple answer is that green energy is not costing you nearly as much as you’ve been led to believe. Yes, energy bills have soared. A new government report analysing the cost of energy and climate-change policies on the cost of energy lays the blame squarely at the feet of global gas prices, followed by network costs.” Read more
Report urges use of gas to avoid UK energy crunch.
FT: Closing Britain’s coal-fired power stations should continue if the government is to meet carbon cutting targets, according to a cross-party report. It argued that gas power generation could providing enough capacity to avoid an energy crunch in the next decade.” Read more
Big 6 take average £95 profit per household on dual bills.
Guardian: “The big six energy suppliers have been accused of “cold-blooded profiteering” after official figures showed they had more than doubled their retail profit margins over the last 18 months and were now earning an average of £95 profit per household on dual-fuel bills.” Read more
One in five UK households now in debt to their energy supplier.
Guardian: “Soaring energy costs and an exceptionally cold winter have squeezed family finances to the extent that 20% of households are now in debt to their energy supplier, according to comparison website uSwitch.” Read more
Japan plans radical electricity market shakeup. Only 2 reactors online.
FT: The ten regional utilities will be split up. “Even before the Fukushima disaster prompted the shutdown of most of Japan’s nuclear plants, pushing up generating costs, electricity rates were twice those in the US and triple those in South Korea.” Read more
Centrica bosses splits £16m pay pot as bills soar.
March 27, 2013 Gas
Guardian: “Centrica chief executive Sam Laidlaw earned a basic salary of £950,000 in 2012, but bonuses pushed his take-home pay to almost £5m.” Read more
UK government claims climate policies lower energy bills.
March 27, 2013 Clean Energy, Climate
Leo Hickman in the Guardian: “It is welcome news that the government has recognised that it must be honest and “transparent” with the public about the impact of its policies on energy bills. Without this, the misinformation and scaremongering over green taxes, etc, will not just continue largely uncontested but magnify, too. But….” Read more
UK energy supplies heading downhill fast, warns Ofgem.
Guardian: “The energy regulator’s chief executive, Alistair Buchanan, issued the stark warning to consumers and businesses to prepare for higher prices as power plants close, foreign gas supplies shrink and increasing demand tightens the British energy market.” Read more
UK government offers nuclear subsidies for 40 years.
February 18, 2013 Nuclear
Guardian: “The government is launching a last-ditch attempt to sign up energy companies to build new nuclear power stations by proposing to sign contracts guaranteeing subsidies for up to 40 years.” Read more
Renewable energy now cheaper than new fossil in Australia.
Bloomberg: BNEF’s Sydney team show “that electricity can be supplied from a new wind farm at a cost of AUD 80/MWh (USD 83), compared to AUD 143/MWh from a new coal plant or AUD 116/MWh from a new baseload gas plant, including the cost of emissions under the Gillard government’s carbon pricing scheme. However even without a carbon price (the most efficient way to reduce economy-wide emissions) wind energy is 14% cheaper than new coal and 18% cheaper than new gas.” Read more
EDF’s flagship nuclear reactor costs rise to ¢8.5bn.
December 3, 2012 Nuclear
EDF announces the bill for Flammanville has risen to €8.5bn, up from an original €3.3bn, a development “raising fresh concerns about its plan to build a similar plant in the UK,” as the FT puts it. The delayed reactor now cannot come onstream before 2016.
UK energy bill: no 2030 decarbonisation target, no funds for energy efficiency.
Guardian: “Energy firms will be allowed to triple the amount of money they add to customers’ bills to pay for renewable power, nuclear and other environmental measures, under plans to be announced by the government next week. The deal over a new energy bill, struck after weeks of sometimes bitter negotiations between the coalition partners, will mean the total amount energy suppliers can add to domestic and business bills will rise from £2.35bn this year to nearly £10bn at the end of this decade. Read more
The UK energy bill is a (losing) “£200bn bet on our energy future.”
Damian Carrington in the Guardian: “There is a simple way to think about the complex energy policy decisions made today: it is a £200bn bet on the UK’s energy future. What’s more, the money on the table belongs to you. Win or lose, every electricity and gas customer will pick up the tab for this wager for decades to come.” Read more
“The UK energy bill is all about nuclear subsidy.”
Paul Dorfman at The Ecologist: “Germany has produced record volumes of renewable energy in the first half of this year, and its National Association of Energy and Water (BDEW) recently published estimates revealing that, from January 2012 to June 2012, renewable energy technologies accounted for more than a quarter of the country’s electricity supply for the first time ever. Actually, the production of renewable energies in Germany is expected to grow faster than the government’s own initial forecast and account for almost half of the country’s electricity within a decade. Read more
Whistleblowers come forward to say UK electricity markets are being rigged too.
Guardian: “The energy secretary, Ed Davey, has warned that energy firms could face swingeing fines and be forced to pay customers back through lower energy prices as the gas-trading scandal escalated with more whistleblowers coming forward and claims that the electricity market could have been rigged too.”
Barclays faces record fine for manipulating US electricity market.
November 1, 2012 Finance
FT: “The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is seeking a record penalty of $435m and trying to claw back $34.9m in profits from Barclays for allegedly manipulating the electricity market for 655 business days between November 2006 and December 2008. The regulator is also accusing four former traders at the bank of intent to manipulate the price of power. The case – and the dozens of emails and instant messages released by the FERC – shines a light on the obscure US electricity market, a niche corner of the commodities industry in which banks, utilities, grid companies and hedge funds bet billions of dollars in physical and financial transactions.”
Solarcentury welcomes the call for a conventional power moratorium.
On Solar Power Portal: Jeremy Leggett, Chairman of Solarcentury, welcomed the scientists’ letter, stating: “The calculations by this elite international scientific trio show that the Chancellor’s vision of Britain as a ‘gas hub’ is a dangerous and divisive illusion, and one that risks increasing electricity prices rather than reducing them. “Prof Barnham and his colleagues essentially point to a Third Industrial Revolution that can not only stop the world from tipping into ruinous climate change, but brake our slide into austerity-driven social collapse by providing the job-rich fuel for the rebuilding of Britain’s economy.” Solarcentury’s CEO, Frans van den Heuvel, added: “It is interesting that the paper places so much emphasis on mixed renewables without storage. That is fine, but at Solarcentury we believe the future is even brighter. Smart grid innovation, plus new smart storage technologies, could potentially make the Third Industrial Revolution move even faster than Barnham et al say, and Solarcentury for one has a strategy factoring based in part on this aspiration. We hope to be a British flag carrier in the front rank of this revolution, generating jobs aplenty. Sadly, for obvious reasons not everyone at the British Treasury supports our thinking.”
UK government is considering an open cheque to nuclear industry.
October 22, 2012 Commentaries, Nuclear
In a letter to the Independent, and related news story, leading academics plus myself warn that the government is about to break its promise not to subsidise new nuclear.
UK blackouts possible as coal comes offline, Ofgem warns.
Guardian: “Britain faces the possibility of power blackouts and even higher electricity prices within three years as a result of coal-fired and other polluting power stations being phased out more quickly than expected. The warning, in a report by the energy regulator, Ofgem, could embolden the government to trigger an early “dash for gas” which critics fear would mean higher carbon pollution for decades to come.”
UK electricity prices would have to double to make new nuclear viable.
FT: “The price of electricity will have to at least double to underpin a new wave of nuclear reactors in the UK, according to people close to negotiations between the government and energy industry. Companies need a price of at least £100 per megawatt hour – more than double the present wholesale power price of about £41/MWh – to justify the huge investment needed in new nuclear plants, they say in comments that will raise concerns that consumers could end up paying much of the cost of the nuclear programme. ….Some estimates put the price tag of building a new reactor as high as £7.5bn – some £3bn more than two years ago. …..He said the upper limit of any such support would be about £130-£140/MWh – the cost of electricity generated by offshore wind farms. “If you can’t do [nuclear] for that price, then you might as well build more wind farms,” he said.”
Barclays under investigation for rigging the California electricity market.
April 12, 2012 Finance
FT: “Barclays and four former traders are being investigated for allegedly manipulating Californian electricity markets, according to US regulators. The bank is alleged to have bought and sold electricity in enough volume to move exchange prices up or down to benefit parallel swap positions, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said in a notice published last week.”
“Households sink deeper into energy debt”: FT.
uSwitch: Up to 4m UK households may now be in debt to their energy suppliers because bills have doubled in 5 years.