A few short weeks ago, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Davey confidently promised no blackouts over Winter 2014/15. Those words seemed ambitiously confident even then. Certainly Davey was in a minority in his assertive opinion, now though that confidence has as much as indeed been confirmed to look misplaced. Whilst the […]
Big 6 Suffer as Competition Bites
It hasn’t been a great time to be an energy supplier of late. With the media and popular press lining up to barrack at every opportunity, some misguided and defensive commentary (step forward Sam Laidlaw) and a general perception of profiteering the industry has had an annus horriblis indeed. The travails of 2014 however do […]
IEA: US Shale Masks Energy Market Realities
For many energy market watchers, including ourselves, recent months have left us confounded. With all the economic and geo-political fundamentals currently in play pointing to increased energy prices, precisely the opposite has happened. Indeed anyone predicting consistent price falls whilst also recognising the pressures on the global energy market would have been pilloried before recent […]
Centrica Boss Attacks UK Energy Policy “Paradox”
Outgoing Centrica Chief Executive Sam Laidlaw has taken a back seat of late following his controversial comments with regards the Competition and Markets Authority investigation but is now back in focus after hitting out in an altogether more coherent attack on the “paradox” of UK energy policy. The focus of Laidlaw’s ire was three-fold: The […]
Big 6 CEOs Claim Miliband’s Price Freeze Preventing Price Cuts
Red Red Ed Miliband has been rather quiet on his energy price freeze rhetoric recently, perhaps his big bro’ has leant him a book on economics at last. Whatever the reason, the hurriedly announced policy still has resonance and not just with desperate energy customers looking for a helping hand with rising energy costs. Amber […]
French Government On High Alert for Nuclear Facility Attacks
France Drones, the World Listens With France having recently used Germany’s well-documented problems as a smoke screen for the ills of their own energy market one could be forgiven for thinking that life was rosy in Paris. That though is not the case, with GDF Suez and EDF Energy facing the pressures of globalisation (in […]
UK Business Confidence in the Energy Market Collapses Further
UK business confidence in energy supply has declined to a ‘balance’ of -67%. The ‘balance’ is a measurement of the difference between respondents expecting improvement and those expecting deterioration. Clearly then -67% is categorically not a ringing endorsement of current UK energy policy and the global energy market. Indeed the balance in 2014 of -67% […]
Working From Home and a Sea View, a New Career Move
We already know that working from home in the UK is more popular than ever as a more flexible attitude to work and improving broadband services make a choice hitherto seen as career suicide an acceptable one. We also see the army of home businesses, small office home office (SoHo’s) and micro businesses starting from […]
Ofgem Under Attack Again
Ofgem are under attack again. That in itself is not a surprising headline these days with the energy regulator seemingly at odds with its own mission statement and calling in the Competition and Markets Authority to do a job many feel is their own responsibility. This latest dissection of Ofgem’s thought patterns however is interesting […]
SSE Under Fire from Ofgem for Scottish Network Costs
The Shetland Isles may not seem a hot bed of controversy for the energy industry but it plays a critical role in adding cost to the electricity bills of the nation. Now though Shetland, and by extension, the energy industry faces a big and rather expensive decision. The existing sources of electricity generation for the […]