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
UK third-bottom of the European renewable energy league.
January 2, 2012 Clean Energy
European Commission statistics published today as part of the EurObserv’ER project show the share of renewable energy in the UK’s final energy consumption was just 3.3%, slightly ahead of only Malta and Luxembourg. The report also shows the UK has the biggest gap to bridge to achieve the legally binding 2020 target of sourcing 15% of the country’s energy mix from renewables. Sweden tops the league with 46.9% of the national energy mix sourced from renewables. Across Europe renewables are 12.4% of overall gross final energy consumption, compared to 11.5% in 2009 – a 0.9 point year-on-year increase compared to 2009.
UK green energy investment sharply down on 2009.
December 30, 2011 Clean Energy
£2.5bn is the latest DECC figure. The developing world is now surging ahead of Britain, which fell out of the top 10 in 2010. 3.3% of UK energy now comes from renewables.
Rebuilding the UK’s energy system by 2050: costs about the same for clean or conventional energy, DECC says.
Every person in Britain will need to pay about £5,000 a year between now and 2050 on rebuilding and using the nation’s entire energy system, new DECC figures suggest. The cost of developing clean and sustainable electricity, heating and transport will be very similar to replacing today’s conventional power stations. The forecasts come from a unique open-source analysis package, called the 2050 pathways calculator, created by Professor David MacKay, DECC chief scientific adviser. Guardian: “However, the cost of the “do nothing” option does not include the damage to the economy expected as a result of climate change, and the calculator notes that, according to the landmark Stern review: “This is the equivalent of up to £6,500 per person per year on average, on top of the cost of the energy system”.”
Church and National Trust attack government’s solar cuts.
December 23, 2011 Clean Energy
“Sudden lurches in policy and support send a bad signal,” say the groups in a letter protesting their lost community projects.
MPs committees slate UK government for feed-in tariff actions.
December 22, 2011 Clean Energy
The joint report of the Environmental Audit Committee and the Energy and Climate Change Committee on DECC’s handling of the solar feed-in tariff cuts is damning. Guardian: “The MPs described the quick tariff change as “panicky”, and said it “smacks of retrospective regulation, which undermines confidence in the government’s management of other energy policies”.”
High Court rules UK government has acted illegally of solar feed-in tariff target date.
December 21, 2011 Clean Energy, Commentaries
My message to BBC Radio’s The World Tonight: let us turn this humiliation for HMG into something positive and get back to where we were: creating jobs the nation needs in these hard times. And to Business Green: “We encourage the Secretary of State to accept the judge’s very clear ruling, to not plunge the industry into a further period of uncertainty by considering going to appeal, and to conduct the remainder of the current consultation process properly with constructive conversations with the industry.”
Ecotricity eco-bond oversubscribed by 62%.
Seeking £10 million of funding from customers and the public to help accelerate the building of new renewables projects, more than 2,000 people had between them applied for £16.2 million worth of ecobonds by the deadline, exceeding the success of ecobond one last year. The bond had a minimum investment of £500 and an initial term of four years. Ecotricity also offered a preferential rate to its customers – 6.5% as opposed to the 6% for non customers.
UK public overwhelmingly supports wind and solar.
December 14, 2011 Clean Energy
A YouGov poll of 1,696 people commissioned by The Sunday Times shows 56% want to see more wind energy capacity in the UK and 74% think solar energy capacity should be increased. Only 19% want wind power to be scaled back, and just 12% think the rollout of solar panels should be blocked.
Big 6 pressure on UK government led to UK solar feed-in tariff ambush.
December 10, 2011 Clean Energy, Commentaries
My view in the Huffington Post: “There are only two possibilities, given the absence of a credible savings narrative and the seemingly lethal intent of the six week warning and the market-shrivelling energy-efficiency pre-qualification. One is breathtaking collective incompetence. The other is conspiracy.
The answer is conspiracy. So I have been told in recent weeks by insiders in Whitehall, Westminster, and in the relevant parts of the energy, PR, and financial industries.”
“Energy firms accused of treating clients with contempt as complaints leap”.
December 9, 2011 Gas
Consumer Focus says complaints against ‘Big Six’ suppliers have risen by 26% over the last three months despite their promises to rebuild trust. EDF, RWE and E.On fared worst.
Why is a Keynesian solution so difficult to sell when it is clear that austerity is worsening the economic downturn?
December 6, 2011 Finance
Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian: The seemingly counter-intuitive argument must be better framed. “A quick look at the record of British debt going back to 1830 shows that, by historical standards, our current indebtedness is no more than a modest uptick compared with, say, the late 1940s, when debt was five times as great as it is now – and yet it was precisely then, when the country really was drowning in red ink, that Keynes was advocating a fiscal stimulus.”
Big 6 demands for up-front payments are a barrier to new UK manufacturing.
December 6, 2011 Gas
Guardian: “The government’s hopes of rebuilding the economy with a “march of the makers” risks being derailed by energy companies that are demanding huge upfront payments to power new factories. Soaring energy prices, which are already hitting homeowners, are also forcing manufacturers to shut down plants or relocate their factories to other countries. The British Ceramic Confederation said some members have been asked to pay deposits of up to £200,000 – the equivalent of four months’ worth of power – before energy firms are willing to take them on as customers.”
Big 6 bosses earn millions as their customers bills soar.
December 6, 2011 Gas
Guardian: “The Big Six energy companies have walked into a political storm over executive pay amid revelations that their bosses are earning up to £4m a year as an increasing number of their customers are being pushed into fuel poverty.”
CO2 emissions have increased by a half in 20 years.
December 5, 2011 Climate
Tyndall Centre research shows that last year, emissions from burning fossil fuels rose by 5.9%, bringing the total rise since 1990, the baseline year for calculating emissions under the Kyoto protocol, to 49%, an average rate of increase of about 3.1% a year.The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, found that global carbon emissions were likely to carry on increasing at a rate of about 3% per year.
EDF and other Big Energy firms have loaned 50 employees to government.
The Guardian reveals that at least 50 employees of companies including the Big 6 have been placed within government to work on energy issues in the past four years: free of charge and working within the departments for secondments of up to two years. “There have also been 195 meetings between ministers from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) and the energy industry between the 2010 general election and March 2011, according to a Guardian analysis of declared meetings with Decc.” Caroline Lucas: “Companies such as the big six energy firms do not lend their staff to government for nothing – they expect a certain degree of influence, insider knowledge and preferential treatment in return. … None of the staff on secondment in Decc work for renewable energy companies. … Secondments also work in reverse, with civil servants going to work in the energy industry, such as a two-year secondment to Shell and another to Horizon Nuclear Power, a joint venture of E.ON and RWE npower that aims to build nuclear power stations in the UK.”
Countercurrents: the triple crunch we face and the barriers to renaissance.
In an extended interview in India, I talk about the similarities between the credit crunch and the peak oil issue, and the power of renewables and why clean-energy industries are being held back.
DECC passed nuclear intelligence documents to industry, documents show.
December 5, 2011 Nuclear
Badly-redacted documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that DECC passed sensitive documents on government policy to the Nuclear Industries Association. They also passed Greenpeace’s court documents (from the case against HMG) to the lobby group. in which EDF features prominently among 260 member companies.
UK economic outlook so bleak that business-as-usual capitalism cannot expect to muddle through now.
December 4, 2011 Finance
Will Hutton in the Observer: “The last time Britain endured such an extended period of depression and falling living standards – the 1870s and 1880s – saw the mushrooming of the co-operative movement and the emergence of the Labour party as the more moderate expressions of anger that wanted to challenge the very basis of capitalism. Be sure that British civil society will not accept its grim fate as if nothing is happening. There will be organised and angry responses – and rightly. We are about to experience economic, social and political tectonic plates on the move.”
UK renewables projects tumble as Big 6 dash for gas.
December 4, 2011 Clean Energy, Gas
Guardian: “The construction of new renewable energy generation capacity has fallen dramatically, as the big six energy suppliers pursue a “dash for gas” policy that could put the UK’s climate change targets out of reach and leave households with higher bills.” Wind projects are down by half on last year. Less than a GW of wind has been approved and 30 GW of gas is at planning stage.
UK new nuclear plans slip yet again: 2019 now, maybe.
December 2, 2011 Nuclear
As the Telegraph puts it: “The first of the new plants will not be built until 2019 because of extra safety checks following Japan’s atomic disaster. Ministers originally hoped to get the first nuclear power station built by 2017, before revising this to 2018. Now there has been a further slippage, after an updated timetable showed the first station in Somerset is not expected until nearer the end of the decade.”
Big Energy firms accused of profiteering, again.
New analysis for the Guardian by Manchester University shows a progressive widening between wholesale and retail prices.
Governor of Bank of England warns of spiral into crisis.
December 1, 2011 Finance
Mervyn King: “The crisis in the euro area is one of solvency not liquidity. And the interconnectedness of major banks means the banking systems and economies around the world are all affected. Only the governments directly involved can find a way out of this crisis.” The Financial Policy Committee urges banks to continue building up their capital stock and urges them to limit bonuses and dividend payouts rather than cutting back on lending to businesses and households.
More than a quarter of UK households are in fuel poverty after Big 6 energy price rises.
With households spending 10% or more of income on home heat and electricity up from nearly one in five households last year to one in four now (4.1 million), the government looks set to miss its statutory obligation to eliminate fuel poverty by 2016. It now looks certain to fail to meet its legal duty. And these estimates were calculated before the huge prices rises announced last summer by the Big 6. New calculations, provided by Consumer Focus and seen by the Guardian, based on actual bills, show the figure for England alone is now over 5 million households. In the summer price hikes the biggest supplier, British Gas, put its gas and electricity prices up by 18% and 16%, meaning an average annual dual-fuel bill for its 9m customers has risen from £1,096 to £1,288. Price rises have averaged 21% since last year. Over the past five years, average prices have gone up 88%. Some 2.5m people are already in debt to their energy supplier. “Excess” winter deaths are already running at 27,000 a year.