The Aberthaw plant, located five miles from Barry, closed as a generator in March 2020.  CCR City Deal, ultimately owned by ten local authorities, purchased it two years later from RWE, and set up CCR Energy, now chaired by a south Wales councillor.

The developer’s mission is to demolish, clear and clean the site in readiness for redevelopment. The parties intend it as an exemplar for secure green energy production, with the potential to create thousands of jobs.

The partners believe redeveloping the site provides spectacular opportunities regionally across south Wales.

Aberthaw, they say, squares well with their commitments to decarbonise energy, while supporting low-carbon jobs and delivering a financial boost for local communities.

SSE Energy’s commercial director Carl Davies said “We aspire to be the UK’s leading provider of local clean energy infrastructure. This agreement with CCR Energy means that we can work together to deliver innovative green projects, create good green jobs and create social value in Aberthaw and across South East Wales.

Under the pair’s memorandum of understanding SSE will invest in advanced technologies for power networks, heating and cooling systems, EV charging and energy management, generation and storage. These will provide the template for future growth, bringing confidence that south Wales can meet the demands of what the parties are calling Industry 4.0.

Born from the CCR City Deal, CCR Energy styles itself as a private development company currently focusing on the plant’s remediation and regeneration. Committed to helping the region thrive, it intends offering a new green energy-enabled development platform, inspiring innovation and supporting the creation of next generation employment opportunities.

The post SSE partners with developers to transform defunct Welsh coal plant appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Generating the same amount of electricity instead from gas-fired stations would have required over 180TWh of gas, the ECIU found. That amount could heat as many as 15.5 million UK homes.

Renewable generation increased in each quarter of 2023, the ECIU researchers found, compared to 2019, their pre-Covid baseline. Output rose by around a quarter and a fifth respectively in last year’s first and final quarters.

Using gas power plants instead to meet such generation levels would have required around 120TWh more gas, equivalent to almost 10 million homes’ annual gas demand, or equal to the contents of around 140 LNG tanker ships, says the ECIU.

Gas-fired electricity fell by up to 30% in each quarter of the year, compared to equivalents in the 2019 baseline.

“Every turn of an offshore wind turbine’s blades reduces our dependence on gas“, declared Jess Ralston, the ECIU’s head of energy.

“As the North Sea continues its inevitable decline, we’ll need to import ever greater quantities of gas, undermining our energy independence.

“The choice for the UK is stark. Boost British renewables or import more gas at a price we cannot control”.

Britain has the highest gas dependency of any European country the ECIU repeats in its latest Power Tracker analysis. Forty per cent of our power and 85% of our home heating come from the high carbon source.

Nuclear, biomass and other networked sources such as low-carbon CHP contributed around posted falls over 2023 registering a combined 60TWh.

Several big wind farms stand in developers’ pipelines.  Last month alone, Orsted announced investment approval for its 2.9GWp Hornsea Three project.

The Danes’ confirmation lifted gloom after the government failed in September to secure any new bids for offshore wind in its latest Contracts for Difference auction.

By belatedly unfreezing the CfDs’ administrative strike price for the latest bidding round later this year, civil servants have sparked hopes of a recovery in new turbines at sea.

The ECIU’s report note concerns too about grid infrastructure and the need for connection grants to keep pace with the rate of renewables buildout.  Ofgem and the National Grid Future System Operator have committed to accelerating the process for grid connections. Both the Conservatives and Labour parties have made faster grid connection a priority ahead of the General Election anticipated this year.

The British researchers cite the International Monetary Fund as their authority that the nation’s gas dependency, combined with Britain possessing western Europe’s most energy wasteful housing stock, has left UK households worst hit across the continent by rising energy costs.

The report came as multinational energy company RWE confirmed that it will acquire a UK-based offshore wind portfolio totalling 4.2GW.

RWE will secure the projects for £963 million from Vattenfall, subject to approval by the Crown Estate and regulatory approvals.

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Developed, says the operator, from extensive engagement with connections counterparties, the report unites for the first time data selected to shorten connections waits for green power generators and storage operators.

The ClearViewConnect platform allows customers to look up any grid supply point (GSP) in their license areas and access technical data, including capacity and updates on network reinforcement tasks.

The report will also provide an anonymised view of the pipeline of generation connections for a specific GSP, allowing customers to see what their connection timeline could look like and anticipate any loss of availability, should their desired hook-up be accelerated.

Information provided by the report will help developers reach decisions on green generation projects, allowing them to identify the best connection point for their assets and also understand interactions with other connections and capacities nearby.

Over 2023 National Grid has talked to three of its largest generating customers – Octopus Energy, RWE and Severn Trent – to develop the report.

Presented as the first of its kind from a DNO, the portal brings together valuable connections data and insights for customers and developers in an easy format. It will tell developers in quest of connections which network area offers them the most realistic prospect of quickest, cheapest links.

A further benefit to the DNO itself and to developers, Clearview’s backers believe, will be exposing as redundant alternative requests for links, lodged by developers as risk-spreaders in the connections process. Less attractive schemes should drop from the connections pipeline, shortening wait queues for all applicants.

The operator is eager to share with other DNOs its know-how acquired in building the information tool. Its launch follows Ofgem’s recent announcement on robust milestone management.

National Grid ED intends working with customers, accumulating their feedback in quest of tweaks and amendments yielding more value.

The DNO’s president Cordi O’Hara declared: “We’ve set about finding practical ways to accelerate connections and the delivery of key green energy and infrastructure projects.

“We are also keen to work with the rest of the industry to share the learnings and model from this process, so that they can be easily replicated by individual DNOs as an offer to their customers.”

Responding from Ofgem, interim director for network pricing Steve McMahon enthused: “This is a welcome step forward.

“Improving the transparency and consistency of data for network users is core to Ofgem’s Data Best Practice Guidance.  We are pleased to see NGED making more data available.  We encourage them, and all networks, to continue to work closely with their customers, and each other, to ensure that the provision of network and connections data across GB, for all parts of the system, is co-ordinated and responsive to stakeholder needs.”

Octopus Energy Generation’s boss Zoisa North-Bond commented: “Long and opaque connection queues are preventing customers from fully benefiting from low-cost green power, while stopping developers from making the best decisions about where to invest.

“We congratulate Cordi‘s team for providing more visibility of projects in the queues in their network. I look forward to seeing other networks follow suit.”

Northern Powergrid capo Phil Jones said; “Our company has been working at pace to speed up grid connections for our customers. We recognise the importance of making transparent and accurate data available to customers for them to plan their projects confidently.

“National Grid’s collaborative lead on the website means that we are quickly able to adopt it enabling our customers at all stages of their project to assess the viability of the project from the outset and find the best point for their connection. This is excellent progress in helping our customers with greener energy solutions, and we at Northern Powergrid are continuing to work on improvements, alongside our fellow DNO’s, to enable our customers to get connected much faster and more efficiently.”

Besides ClearViewConnect, National Grid is developing a suite of tools to support wider industry reform of the connections process. To view the report, look here.

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Britain’s population is dogged by confusion, disagreement and comparative ignorance about renewable energy sources, new analysis finds in answers given by 2,000 UK billpayers to communications strategists Copper Consultancy.

Even agreeing which sources can legitimately be classed as renewable poses problems for the average billpayer, according to Copper’s analysis.

Less than half – or 49% – of the 2,000 billpayers polled by the firm this spring regard onshore turbines as a true source of renewable electricity.  This low share may – in the analysts’ verdict – “possibly point to confusion around schemes that haven’t always had political and public support”.

Though the Cameron government’s 2015 nimby-inspired ban on new onshore wind farms in England was nominally lifted by a successor administration four years later, subsequent continuing failures by governments under Johnson, Truss & now Sunak to arm planning officials with new guidance has in effect continued the Conservatives’ blocking of new turbine parks on English soil.

Nuclear fares worse in Britons’ perception, with only 16% regarding reactors like Hinkley C & Sizewell B as renewables sources.  Less than a quarter of Britons – or 23% – realise that hydrogen can be a renewable source.

The study confirms solar PV and wind turbines, the latter either on land or sea, as the nation’s most immediately recognised sources of clean electricity. All three are named by two-thirds of over 55s but, in the cases of wind’s two possible locations, by less than 40% of respondents in their early 20s.

Anomalies abound in the public’s attitudes.  Just over 10% of the young middle-aged, classified as aged between 35 to 44 years, apparently regard coal and gas as “renewable”.

Public awareness of the true share of how much of Britain’s electricity stems from proven low-carbon roots is consequently fuzzy and wide of the mark.  Only 6% of respondents were close to identifying correctly the confirmed 41% share which green sources achieved in UK power generation last year.

Overall, upwards of 53% of Britons believe wrongly that renewable generation’s share is 40% or less. A further 20% don’t feel confident even to guess green sources’ share.

A picture is painted, says Copper’s analysts, of Britain’s public believing green electricity is still in its infancy.

“It’s surprising just how low UK public awareness and understanding of renewable energy is”, said Caroline Romback, Copper’s director of construction.

Only 24% of billpayers polled described themselves as confident in knowing how much of their power came from renewables.  That’s not to say respondents don’t care; 53% said they were interested in understanding where their energy comes from.

Copper’s findings destroy an abiding myth that younger people care more about renewables the old.  The reverse is true, the report concludes.

For both offshore & onshore wind, for example, only 50% of respondents younger than 34 years old declared support, compared to around 60% support among 35 to 44 year olds, and around 70% of the over-50s voicing their enthusiasm.

Such findings will strengthen a common view among wind developers, that objections to new onshore turbines often are unrepresentative of true local opinion, and are instead merely obstructive & prejudiced.

To the question of which generation technologies would contribute most to Britain’s quest for Net Zero by 2050, solar PV and offshore wind came out top, each commanding around one-third of votes.  Onshore wind followed closely, with nearly a quarter of votes.

“With nuclear, “ Copper reports, ”we saw a clear escalation in support, the older that a respondent was. Only 8% of our youngest respondents see nuclear as a Net Zero contributor, compared to 21% of our 55 and older respondents.  Again, we saw a gender split for nuclear support, with more support for nuclear from male respondents (21%) than from female ones (9%).

Nimbys appear to inspire more fear and more negative influence on politicians & planners than their comparatively meagre numbers appear to justify, the report implies.

On the contrary, older people emerge from the study as predominantly committed to new generation sources, particularly in relation to local generation schemes offering at least some identifiable control by their community.

Read Copper Consultancy’s report for free here.

INTEREST DECLARED:  The present writer invests in four volunteer-run local energy co-operatives.

The post NIMBYs – zombies or creatures of myth? Copper finds resistance to green power may be overstated appeared first on theenergyst.com.

It is “simply not acceptable”, the regulatory chief said, that 20% of low carbon generation projects now in the NG’s and DNOs’ approval pipelines must wait ten years before reaching their offered connection dates.  A further 40% have been offered connections beyond 2030.

“That pace is not compatible with our ambitions on cost, security, or Net Zero”, said Brearley told a conference in Birmingham.

“Polite queuing may well be in the very best of our British traditions, but it is simply not working here”.

He called for an end to ‘first come, first served’ management of connection applications.  That had led to queues becoming blocked with projects based on outdated, now unviable business cases.

Between 60% and 70% of high-voltage transmission schemes never connect to the grid, the regulator calculates. More than half of today’s queued projects will wait five years or more to be offered a connection date.

Brearley welcomed this week’s proposals from National Grid ESO under its Connections Reform initiative for tighter management of links approval.

This says that projects which cannot meet predefined milestones will drop out of consideration, and without financial penalty.   Such a two-stage process could shorten connection waits for many schemes by between two and ten years, the ESO estimates.

National Grid chief executive John Pettigrew recently called for the ESO to be freed to make “anticipatory investment” to accommodate as yet unapproved renewables projects.

But Brearley maintained yesterday that Ofgem’s “invest and connect policy” has removed all barriers to National Grid investing in grid expansion and upgrades ahead of applications.

Ofgem piloted the new direction in December, accelerating £20bn investment in connecting up 26 offshore wind projects. It has launched a consultation to extend this approach to other technologies.

“This problem needs to be tackled now”, said Brearley. “We will work with everyone across the industry to make sure that we do. But if we don’t go far enough, then yes we will have to change the regime to make sure that we do so”.

On Net Zero, Brearley told the conference that the regulator’s board favoured taking on an explicit responsibility for delivering the target.   It would sit easily beside the body’s duty to defend consumers’ interests in Britain’s energy markets.

More here.

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Greg Jackson’s privately held behemoth-in-the-making announced today its first major Asian investment, pumping up to £10 million into Japanese PV developer Yotsuya Capital, now tasked to develop 250MWp of solar farms by 2028.

The British group indicated that further investments are in its pipeline, both in Japan itself and “across the continent”.

Today’s announcement comes within days of Britain signing up alongside Japan as the only European member to date of the Asia-focussed Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).   Senior UK trade officials are due to visit Japan in coming weeks.  While citing CPTPP, the company’s announcement made no mention of Brexit.

Renewables at present account for around 20% of Japan’s electricity generation. Its government is aiming to nearly double this to 38% this decade, en route to hoped for Net Zero status by mid-century.

Tokyo’s policymakers see an expansion of renewables as a one tool in their economic repair kit to shake off the slumbering giant’s three decades of economic under-performance.

Consultants Wood Mackenzie calculated last month that Japan will need around $147bn investment in renewables and storage to reach its 2030 energy aspirations.

Greg Jackson’s ‘gaijin’, or foreigners, entered Japan’s energy market in 2020, launching a joint venture with local energy retailer Tokyo Gas. The new challenger provides 100% green electricity to households and recently crossed the 160,000 customer mark. It aims to serve 1 million Japanese households by 2026.

“This funding from Octopus is transformational for us”, said Yotsuya Capital’s CEO Toshiaki Isoi. “It means we can accelerate our growth to the next level and develop much more solar across Japan in the coming years.”

Hajime Nakamura, CEO of Octopus Energy in Japan, commented: “We are incredibly proud of the pace at which we’ve been able to grow our retail business here,

“This decision to invest in renewable energy power development is the next logical step on Octopus’ path to increasing its footprint in Japan, and a meaningful step to accelerate the green energy revolution across the region

His boss Zoisa North-Bond, CEO of the British firm’s generation division, was equally excited: “There’s a huge opportunity to help meet Japan’s renewables targets and accelerate its clean energy transition.

“This investment in fast-growing solar developer Yotsuya is our first step into Asian renewables – and it’s only the beginning”, she added. “We’ve got big plans to scale our team in Asia, and invest in and build even more green power across the continent.”

An investment team based in Singapore headed by Shamik Chatterjee scans Asia for Octopus’ future Asian investments.

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The two technologies have been deployed off Orkney in a four-month pilot, providing low carbon power and communication to infrastructure including Baker Hughes’ subsea controls equipment and a resident underwater robot vehicle provided by Transmark Subsea.

The European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) has supplied kit to measure speed and direction of currents during the deployment.  Wave Energy Scotland gave £160,000 to support the integration of the umbilical cord into the wave energy converter.

The RSP pilot project aims to show how green technologies can combine to provide reliable low carbon power and communications under the waves. Proponents hope setups such as the RSP will deliver cost-effective alternatives to umbilical cables, which are carbon intensive with long lead times to make and install.

Deployment off Orkney is the third phase of the RSP project. Consortium partners supporting it include Harbour Energy and Serica Energy. Each phase of the programme has also been supported by grant funding from the Hollyrood- and Westminster-supported Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC), formerly known as the Oil and Gas Technology Centre.

In 2021 the consortium invested £1.6 million into phase two of the programme – which saw the successful integration of the core technologies in an onshore commissioning test environment at Verlume’s plant in Aberdeen.

The entire system is now undergoing sea trials 5 km east of the Orkney mainland. The system’s technology readiness level is elevated to levels six to seven, in other words, system completion and qualification via testing.

Two years ago Mocean Energy’s Blue X prototype underwent sea tests at European Marine Energy Centre’s test site at Scapa Flow.  It generated its first power and provided valuable operational data. The Blue X programme was also supported by Wave Energy Scotland, its £3.3 million fostering the venture’s development, construction and testing.

“This is a natural next step for our technology,” says Cameron McNatt, Mocean Energy’s managing director. “The new test site east of Deerness offers a much more vigorous wave climate and the opportunity to demonstrate the integration of a number of technologies in real sea conditions.”

Verlume’s seabed battery energy storage system, Halo, has been specifically designed for the harsh underwater environment, reducing operational emissions and facilitating the use of renewable energy by providing a reliable, uninterrupted power supply.

Halo’s core is its intelligent energy management system, Axonn, a fully integrated system which autonomously maximises available battery capacity in real time.

Andy Martin, chief commercial officer of ten-year old Aberdeen technologists Verlume, added: “This programme is the pinnacle of the success to date in this project.

“We are very much looking forward to the Halo being deployed”, said Martin, pictured. The testing will provide a great opportunity to gather high quality performance and operational data which will support the further electrification of the subsea sector.”

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The figure is a new record for the highest profits ever seen from a company on the London Stock Exchange, coming only a week after its rival posted the previous best of £22 billion.

Two UK-registered fossil fuel leviathans together posting £45 billion over the same year’s trading immediately brought renewed calls from opposition politicians to extend the windfall tax – or ‘energy profits levy’ as the Treasury knows it  – which Rishi Sunak reluctantly imposed last May when Chancellor.

Following amendments including by current Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the windfall now stands at 35% on ‘excess profits’ recorded by hydrocarbon extractors.  The ‘temporary measure’ is scheduled to last until 2028.

LibDem leader Sir Ed Davey, – a former energy secretary – called on Radio Four for elimination of investment allowances which still permit BP and Shell to write off new North Sea drilling infrastructure against tax.

“No company should be making these kind of outrageous profits from Putin’s illegal war” said Davey. “It’s another sign of Rishi Sunak’s failure to re-act when the Liberal Democrats told him to, and tax profits these companies were never expecting, as homeowners struggle with bills.

Davey cited Hunt’s £40 billion estimate of the current windfall rate’s revenues to the Treasury over its five years.  A further £10 billion could easily be achieved, said the LibDem leader, more than enough to offset the £3.1 billion cost to Britons of the government’s trimming back due in April of its emergency support for bill-payers.

BP CEO Bernard Looney – pictured – last year famously compared his company to a cash machine.  Departing Shell boss Ben van Beurden in October called for targeted government intervention to protect the poor.

Analysis of BP’s highest earnings in its 114 year history showed it has slowed its commitment to renewables.   The firm had intended to cut oil and gas production by an industry-leading 40 per cent by the year 2030.  Today’s figures indicate the drop will now be only 25 per cent.

BP last year spent $16.3 billion on capital projects, a figure it plans to maintain. Looney told the Financial Times that it would increase by $ 8 billion its spending on its ‘transition’ businesses – renewables, hydrogen, biofuels and charging – over the years to 2030.

But critics pointed out that spending on oil and gas ventures will rise by the same amount.  Last year BP invested more in its fossil fuel activities than in its future-oriented low-carbon businesses, provoking charges of green wash.

The company announced it is rewarding shareholders with a 10% rise in last year’s fourth quarter dividend, and buying back a further $2.75 billion in share buybacks, following $ 11.25 already purchased last year.

By noon, BP’s share price had risen over 5%, valuing the company at £ 86.484 billion. More on BP’s 2022 figures here.

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Describing the 100% goal as ‘ambitious but credible’, Julie James AM, climate change minister in the Senedd, unveiled a consultation on how the target can be met, only a dozen years from now.

She confirmed Wales is already making good progress on previous targets set in 2017. The nation already generates 55% of its electricity from renewables, against the 38.2% contributed last year by clean, non-nuclear methods to the UK grid.

The minister today proposed at least 1.5 GigaWatt of renewables capacity should be locally owned by 2035, over and above any contribution from domestic or industrial heat pumps.

A 2035 target of a further 5.5 GigaWatt of additional Welsh generation from heat pumps is subject to increased support from Westminster’s UK-wide government, and falls in the cost of relevant technologies.

Minister James said: “Our previous targets in 2017 signalled our high ambitions for renewable energy and this Government’s desire to move away from use of, and reliance on, fossil fuels.

“However, the climate crisis shows that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. Providing new targets compels us to stride towards Net Zero as quickly as we realistically can”.

If achieved, the goal will see Wales’ economy completing its switch to green power far faster than the UK as a whole.

Published in December 2020,  then UK premier Johnson’s white paper on UK energy, ‘Powering our Net Zero Future’,  contemplates around 5%  per cent of power generation even in the Net Zero year of 2050 still coming from gas or hydrocarbon sources.  Offsetting, possibly through financial instruments, would ensure the Zero goal.

Though renewables accounted in 2019 for 54% of all Britain’s electricity, the predicted need to grow output fourfold by mid-century makes complete UK-wide elimination of fossil-fuelled power difficult.

Minister James stressed that Wales’ infrastructure and supply chain would be key to hitting Cardiff’s targets.  The Assembly will also underwrite £1m to explore the potential of offshore wind.

Matching the Senedd’s subsidies, Britain’s biggest harbour operator Associated British Ports said it would go pound for pound in funding preparatory work on floating offshore wind projects, earmarked to sail from Welsh ports.

The minister hailed the parties’ commitment to floating turbines.

“We will continue to work closely with Port Talbot, Milford Haven Port Authority and colleagues in the Celtic Sea Alliance to maximise the benefits from floating wind to Wales”, said Ms James AM.

The alliance began in October 2019 as an umbrella group of developers, operators and devolved and regional governments, tasked to promote marine energy.  Its conference last September examined floating turbines’ commercial potential for Welsh energy.

Grants of ten-year leases in the Celtic Sea’s Welsh and neighbouring waters are due to be finalised over the next nine months. In December, lease facilitators the Crown Estate provided further pre-leasing information to likely developers.

Andrew Harston, ABP’s regional director added today: “Associated British Ports warmly welcomes this early-stage support from the Welsh government to help kick start the development of a major green energy hub at Port Talbot.

“This support is key to the construction of transformational infrastructure, which will enable the manufacturing, integration and assembly of floating offshore wind components at Port Talbot.

“The roll-out of floating offshore wind in the Celtic Sea offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for South Wales to lead a global market and will play a major role in contributing to Wales and the UK’s net zero targets. By doing so it will support and create thousands of long-term, high-quality jobs.

“As the gateway to the Celtic Sea, and with unique capabilities and natural advantages, this support will help position Port Talbot at the heart of these emerging green technologies and industrial decarbonisation.”

The post How Green will be my Valley?  Wales opts to go 100% renewable as early as 2035 appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Analysis led by Dr Iain Staffell of Imperial College points to the growing redundancy of gas-fired electricity as the benchmark setting Britain’s market prices for end consumers.

Up by 5% percentage points on 2021, wind, solar and hydro generation for the first time met more than 40% of UK demand over a full year, Dr Staffell’s team at Imperial Consultants found.

For the first time in more than a decade, Britain posted a small surplus – 1.9 TWh – as a net power exporter across all technologies, Staffell’s researchers reveal in the latest Drax Electric Insights report

Despite a record supply of cheap renewables, unified power pricing structures increasingly seen as outdated by critics, pushed the wholesale price of power to all-time highs, on the back of gas supply further curtailed after March by Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

For the first time ever, this year will end with Britain enduring average wholesale electricity prices never dipping below £200 per MWh. Last year, it was £113 per MWh, and in 2020, a tiny £34 per MWh.

Overall generation from UK renewables has more than quadrupled since 2012. On one day this May, 72.8% of power on the grid was low or zero carbon, Staffell’s team report in the periodical.

For the first time, 2022 saw British wind farms break the 20 GWh barrier.  The nation’s maximum contribution from turbines is up by a third on only four years ago.

Gas supplied 42% of the country’s power in 2022, its largest share of the fuel mix since 2016, as the fuel filled the gap left by retiring nuke plants.

“This has been a year like no other”, writes Dr Staffell.

“The public are feeling the pain of high gas prices on their energy bills even though renewables are providing the grid with more cheap, green electricity than ever before.

“The lesson from 2022 is that we need to break our addiction to fossil fuels once and for all if we want lower cost and more secure energy supplies”, the Imperial lecturer writes.

“If we had not invested in wind, solar and biomass over the last decade, our energy bills would have been even higher, as would the risk of blackouts over winter.

“The energy crisis cannot be solved by increasing our reliance on gas imported from abroad”, Staffell argues. “We need to turbocharge our investment in clean energy technologies to become Europe’s renewable electricity powerhouse, which will cut fuel bills at home and bring money into the economy by exporting power to our neighbouring countries.”

Gross power exports from both fossil and clean sources quadrupled 2021’s total, reaching 17.2 TWh, and earning £3.1bn for Britain’s economy.   Balanced against imports, the nation’s 2022 figure of 1.9TWh net power exported reverses 2021’s deficit. In that year Britain imported a net 22.9TWh.

Burning imported wood pellets in its Yorkshire furnaces, Drax claims to be the UK’s biggest renewable power producer.  Adding in 440 MW of pumped hydro at Cruachan, the group’s “hollow mountain” east of Oban – pictured -, the group says it met up to 20% of UK renewable output during times of peak demand in 2022.

Drax Group CEO Will Gardiner added: “We can accelerate and strengthen Britain’s long-term energy security by ending our reliance on expensive, imported fossil fuels and instead increase investment in homegrown renewables, and innovative green technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) and pumped storage hydro.”

By deploying carbon scrubbing technology at its Selby furnaces, Drax plans to remove permanently 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere every year by 2030.

The post Uncoupling renewables’ retail prices from thermal? Drax’s take on 2022 glut boosts the case appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Wind, solar, hydro and anaerobic digestion together made 43.1% of Britain’s electricity last year, outstripping legacy burning of hydrocarbons for the first time ever. 

The post Bye-bye, fossils: Renewables out-duke UK’s 2020 thermal output for first time appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Around two thirds of company directors surveyed by The Energyst believe that power prices will rise by around 10% in 2016.

That prediction follows a relatively benign 2015 in terms of wholesale prices.

Early respondents* to the annual Director’s Report have indicated that they are equipped to deal with spikier prices as a result of tight margins and changes to the balancing and settlements regime.

Three quarters of respondents said they had a plan in place to reduce exposure to energy price or supply shocks, and most of those firms have an in house energy manager.

Big lighting spend

Virtually all of the early respondents said they planned to implement energy efficiency/demand reduction measures within the next 12 months. Three quarters of those directors plan to implement lighting. HVAC, building controls, onsite generation and behavioural change also figure in the plans of around 40% of respondents.

The survey, sent to 2,500 company directors, will form the basis of the 2016 Director’s Report, published early January. It also covers demand response, procurement, liquidity and asks directors to give their views of broker/TPI transparency and service.

Directors also give their views on what business taxes changes the treasury should make, and what they believe would help decarbonise the economy at lowest cost.

Take the survey

The survey takes 5-10 minutes to complete. All those that take part will receive a free copy of the report, which provides a valuable insight into the state of the market – from the market – and where businesses see the best bang for their buck.

Click here to take the survey.

*The survey was emailed to 2,563 directors on 16/11/15. This article is based on initial findings from a low sample. Figures may change significantly from full sample.

Related articles:

Free report: How businesses think demand side response must change

Free report: Financing Energy Efficiency – why are projects failing for lack of finance?

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The Competition & Markets Authority has suggested that the UK’s small businesses are overpaying on energy bills to the tune of £500 million per annum.

In a report published today the watchdog said third party intermediaries should be made to disclose more fully how and where they are making their money. The CMA has also proposed that more price comparison data and price comparison websites for small businesses are brought to market.

The CMA’s report into the UK energy market said Ofgem’s inability to make things happen at speed and government’s misguided attempts at allocating subsidies to certain technologies outside of a competitive framework were problematic.

Neither the wholesale markets nor vertical integration were major impediments to competition, it found. Some domestic customers were paying more than others for their energy because they were not actively switching supplier, said the CMA. Likewise small businesses.

The report suggested a need for reforms of locational charging and the introduction of locational transmission losses.

Meanwhile EMR elements such as the capacity mechanism and contracts for difference had merit, said the CMA. However, it pulled no punches when stating that Decc’s decision to allocate contracts for some renewables projects outside of the competitive CFD framework will cost UK businesses and consumers up to £4.5bn more than necessary over 15 years. Nuclear developers looking for Final Investment Decision enabling contracts from government might feel less optimistic as a result.

Decc’s allocation of renewables into subsidy pots was also suggested to be haphazard by the CMA.

Small businesses and TPIs

Alleged malpractices by third party intermediaries had damaged trust in the SME and microbusiness market, said the CMA. Lots of businesses are paying around a third over the odds for electricity due to rollover tariffs, and around a quarter more than they would pay on retention contracts for gas. Those on deemed contracts could be paying up to double the rates for energy when compared to retention contracts.

As a result, suppliers were making up to four times the margin on small businesses than for large customers. The difference in margins and tariffs could not be justified by risk or costs, said the CMA.

The report noted a lack of price transparency on small business tariffs, with a substantial proportion of microbusiness tariffs being negotiated between customer and supplier. The CMA is now proposing remedies such as making suppliers publish prices and making more data available to encourage price comparison websites for business energy.

The CMA also said that TPIs were not sufficiently transparent on how they were making their incentives by recommending suppliers and tariffs to businesses. It wants them to state whether they are genuinely making the best recommendation or whether they are simply representing deals from a limited number of energy suppliers. The CMA also wants TPIs to state clearly to customers how they are incentivised by suppliers for their recommendations.

See the provisional report and initial remedies here.

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While George Osborne may be playing the blame game for the busted cap on renewable energy subsidies, the truth is that successive governments have failed to decarbonise UK plc at the lowest cost. Demand reduction would have been a cheaper option than the support levels afforded to some forms of generation, and should have been supported instead, according to Mervyn Bowden, former head of energy at Marks & Spencer turned energy consultant.

He also thinks that businesses are ill-prepared should the supply-demand balance this winter turn out to be less stable than some predict; and that Esos should have more mandatory elements to force businesses to become more energy efficient.

Risky approach

Only a fraction of firms have an energy risk management plan, said Bowden. “That is severely worrying [given that], if there is going to be a supply demand balance issue, and blackouts, this coming winter is going to be the one.”

More encouragement and support from government is required, Bowden believes.

“Esos is fine but it has no real teeth. The problem is that is has not got enough mandatory elements.”

That lack of bite will force up energy bills as more expensive options are supported, Bowden warns.

“Some of the stuff is so simple and such a no brainer. Successive governments have incentivised renewable energy generation big style, like the crazy subsidies on solar PV at 40 odd pence per kilowatt hour,” Bowden said.

“That money should have gone into reducing demand. Because if you look at the relative returns, even at simple cash payback level, the feed in tariffs are based on a financial return of about 8%. Whereas you can get 50% or more from the right energy efficiency schemes.

“They are virtually in a position where they don’t need subsidising. But I am not quite sure what is going to make some businesses wake up and go down that path.”

Esos for SMEs?

Meanwhile, Bowden thinks that an Esos type scheme should be expanded to capture smaller businesses.

“There are lots of SMEs who are not quite in the energy intensive user category who probably could benefit hugely from taking a more sensible pragmatic view on energy management – but don’t,” he said.

“One of the odd things about Esos is that it goes down to organisations with 250 employees. But what about the organisations below that? They are the ones that really could save an awful lot of money depending on how important energy use is to their overall business.”

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Click here to see if you qualify for a free subscription to the print magazine, or to renew.

Follow us at @EnergystMedia. For regular bulletins, sign up for the free newsletter.

The post Government ‘should subsidise energy efficiency over renewables and give Esos teeth’ appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Haven Power will provide Thames Water with power for the next five years in a deal worth £500m. The Drax-owned energy supplier said the agreement would enable Thames Water to use only renewable power. The contract has the option for two further five year renewals.

Thames Water energy manager Angus Berry said the deal “puts downward pressure on bills and means we will now be using 100% renewable electricity. We look forward to growing our relationship with Haven to exploit further opportunities to minimise energy costs and emissions, as well as continuing to work towards our ambitious target of self-generating 30% of our own electricity by 2020.”

Drax Group is in the process of converting the 4GW Drax coal plant in Selby, Yorkshire, to biomass. Two of its six units have so far been converted with a third unit expected to be modified later this year.

Thames Water already generates around 20% of its own renewable electricity via solar, hydro, wind and biogas.

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