Guardian: “Jeremy Leggett among 100 signatories to letter opposing oil firm’s likely influence over university’s climate change studies.”
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
Big energy warns Osborne push still does not make gas economics stack up.
December 5, 2012 Gas
FT: “”I don’t think anyone’s going to be rushing out to build on the basis of today’s statement,” said an executive at one of the Big Six energy suppliers. Industry analysts say new gas-fired power stations are being held up mainly because the economics do not stack up, not because the policy framework is not right. “The recent history of UK gas-fired power stations is one of challenging market conditions, with many gas plants currently loss-making,” said Ronan O’Regan, director, energy and renewables, at PwC. “This is the biggest barrier to investment”.”
JL thought: This can’t be encouraging for HMT. I wonder how long they will doggedly push this line if industry isn’t fully behind them, with polls showing they gain no political advantage.
“70,000 more jobs and £20bn more GDP with offshore wind than gas.”
December 4, 2012 Clean Energy, Gas
Guardian: “Backing offshore wind in preference to gas would create 70,000 more jobs and generate £20bn more GDP, according to a new report today by Cambridge Econometrics (funded by Greenpeace and WWF). Rob Gross, an energy expert at Imperial College London, said: “This report is a hugely important contribution to the UK policy debate. Economic impacts in the round are poorly understood and this report remedies that. I recommend this to all analysts of energy policy.”
“Chancellor backs gas to fire up Britain”: FT.
December 3, 2012 Gas
FT: Chancellor George Osborne is set to approve up to 30 gas-fired power stations, backed by possible tax breaks and a new regulatory regime for shale gas exploration. Producing 26 gigawatts, they will replace old coal, nuclear and gas plants. Read more
Solar in UK energy bill: investment-critical decision still pending.
November 29, 2012 Clean Energy, Commentaries
Solar Power Portal: Commenting on the setting of a suitable strike price for solar, Jeremy Leggett, Chairman of Solarcentury told Solar Power Portal: “In practice, it’s now vital that the strike price for PV is set at a level that really drives forward investment in the technology. Ministers now have a golden opportunity to make good their 22GWp by 2020 ambition. Read more
Bank of England fears that financial system needs more capital.
November 29, 2012 Finance
The BoE has ordered UK banks to make a more “honest” assessment of hidden losses on their balance sheets and warned they will be forced to find ways to fill a shortfall that could be up to £60bn. Read more
UK wind industry says energy bill will “fire up” renewables.
November 29, 2012 Clean Energy
Gordon Edge in the Guardian: You don’t have to be a whizz at maths to see that the targets will require a steep growth rate in renewables. It would be a remarkable trajectory, taking wind from a 1% share of the nation’s electricity to around 25% in under 15 years, overtaking nuclear power in the process. But can this actually happen? Yes it really can.” Read more
UK energy bill detail delay will stall renewables, campaigners say.
Guardian: “Reforms to the energy market announced on Thursday will yield “once in a generation” opportunities to cut bills and greenhouse gas emissions, according to the energy secretary, Ed Davey. …But the (contract-for-difference) prices will not be set until next summer, at the earliest, leaving investors in such power plants hanging.” Read more
UK media is ‘anti-renewables’ & neglects renewables industry voice.
November 28, 2012 Clean Energy
CC Group, a comms agency, conducts a study of how the renewable energy industry is portrayed in the national media, finding that only 21 per cent of national newspaper articles are positive about the renewable energy industry. Read more
Senior DECC officials wined & dined by nuclear industry repeatedly.
November 28, 2012 Nuclear
Guardian: “Senior civil servants responsible for ensuring the building of the UK’s new fleet of nuclear power stations have been extensively wined and dined by nuclear industry lobbyists, documents released under freedom of information reveal.” Read more
‘Independent’ Green Deal regulator is owned by the Big 6 energy firms.
ClickGreen: “The so-called independent regulator of the Green Deal programme is actually controlled and owned by the ‘Big 6′ energy companies, ClickGreen can reveal. Gemserv is being paid £5.8 million of taxpayers’ money to administer the registration scheme, which will help households increase energy efficiency and cut down on their utility bills. But a clear conflict of interest has become apparent after it was found the largest shareholders in Gemserv are actually the energy companies themselves – British Gas, Scottish & Southern, ScottishPower, nPower, E.ON and EDF.” Read more
First-ever publicly listed UK solar bond bought by a pension fund.
Climate Bonds Initiative: “The £6 bn Pension Insurance Corporation (PIC) has bought up as a private placement the first ever UK publicly-listed solar bond, a £40m ($64m), 24 year bond linked to two 5 MWh solar plants in Somerset owned by Solar Power Generation.” Read more
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
Greenpeace undercover team exposes Tory plot to retreat from Climate Act.
Guardian: “Lord Howell of Guildford, a former minister in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet who stood down as a foreign office minister in September, said the chancellor was “putting pressure” on David Cameron over “absurd” climate change targets. Guardian: “The Conservative MP running the party’s byelection bid in Corby has been secretly filmed apparently supporting the campaign of a rival candidate. Read more
FSA probes Libor-like price fixing in UK gas market.
November 13, 2012 Gas
Guardian: “The City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority, is investigating claims by a whistleblower that Britain’s £300bn wholesale gas market has been “regularly” manipulated by some of the big power companies, exploiting weaknesses that echo the recent Libor scandal. 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.”
Centrica and RWE urge UK government to drop green electricity target.
Times: “Two of Britain’s largest energy companies have broken ranks with their peers and have urged the Government to ditch a radical plan to make electricity generation almost entirely green by 2030. RWE npower and Centrica believe that the proposed decarbonisation target, which could be included this month in the Government’s new Energy Bill, goes too far, given how much needs to be done to meet existing green targets.”
Why the oil industry today is like banking was in 2006: NEF. “Economic” peak oil by 2014/15.
A NEF report: “Inevitable high oil prices are like a glass ceiling on recovery. As growth in oil production slows and global demand continues to rise, sustained high oil prices and price spikes will have a significant impact on the economy, in effect placing a glass ceiling on economic recovery. Read more
“Companies with assets in energy may be storing up trouble for investors.”
FT: “The (CarbonTracker) report also led Carbon Tracker’s chairman, Jeremy Leggett, and other financial sector figures with an interest in climate, to meet Andy Haldane, the Bank of England’s executive director for financial stability, this year to discuss the idea that the carbon bubble could pose a risk to stability in the UK. It is far from clear the Bank will act on such warnings. A spokesman declined to comment when asked if any action had been contemplated since the Carbon Tracker meeting.” (Quote in title is from print edition, not website).
Investors ask government for UK energy subsidy transparency.
Sunday Express: “Tridos Bank, CCLA, WHEB Asset Management and others (including Solarcentury) have written to the Government to say that while the subsidies that renewable energy groups get are “clear and transparent”, fossil fuels get indirect subsidies. According to the International Energy Agency, global subsidies to fossil fuels were six times higher than renewable energy in 2010. City investors want the National Audit Office to work out precisely what subsidies fossil fuel groups get. They say that without knowing precisely the Government cannot develop a clear energy framework and people cannot invest in renewable energy projects.”
Hitachi buys Horizon and starts a “100 year commitment” to UK nuclear.
October 30, 2012 Nuclear
Hiroaki Nakanishi, President of Hitachi: “I am extremely pleased that we have been successful in acquiring Horizon Nuclear Power. Today starts our 100 year commitment to the UK and its vision to achieve a long-term, secure, low-carbon, and affordable energy supply.”
Carbon-bubble risk might strand Glencore-Xstrata “assets”, I warn in the FT.
My op-ed in the FT: “In the build-up to next month’s shareholder vote on the proposed £70bn merger of Xstrata and Glencore, investors have focused on executive compensation. As is so often the case, they are neglecting other systemic risks, in particular that of climate change. Yet a third of Xstrata’s revenues come from coal. Atmospheric research centres are telling governments that unless greenhouse gas emissions from coal, oil and gas burning are slashed, we are heading for a 6C rise in global temperatures that would be economically and environmentally catastrophic. As things stand, the markets assume governments will not act on these warnings in any meaningful way. But they might – especially if events such as this week’s devastating storm on the US northeast coast become more frequent. And if they don’t, others might act even without regulation.”