We’ve said no to new coal w/o Carbon Capture & Storage and plan to phase out existing coal over next 10-15 years. PM Cameron #Climate2014 Twitter and tweeting brings with itself a present danger of the misguided, off-guard, ill-considered missive in 140 characters that soon provides cause for regret. Whilst David Cameron probably didn’t suffer […]
The Nuclear Clean-Up Cost Conundrum
As Japan prepares to announce a reconnection of their nuclear plants to the country’s grid network the cost of post operation cleaning of the UK’s nuclear generation fleet has increased by £6bn from a £63.8bn estimate in 2011-12 to £69.8bn in 2012-13, with future increases expected to arise. The cost for decommissioning covers activities to […]
Wind generation falls as Lord Stern’s delivers his latest warning
Stern vs. Apathy vs. Nature = Climate Change Hiatus “Reducing emissions is not only compatible with economic growth and development – if done well it can actually generate better growth than the old high-carbon model,” Lord Stern Those are the latest findings from Lord Stern the author of the eponymous 2006 Stern review into the […]
Human tragedy – energy debt leads to shopkeeper suicide
In an appalling sequence of events The Daily Telegraph has reported a story that will shock all those who read it. A shopkeeper, faced with a large payment demand from his energy supplier and limited time and resources to pay it, resorted to taking his own life as workers prepared to cut off his supply. […]
BIG 6 Commits to Balance Refunds
Fresh from their Ovo Energy interest payment debacle Ofgem have claimed victory in the long running saga of customer balance-gate. The Big 6 energy companies, with the spectre of the CMA investigation into the energy market hanging over them like the sword of Damocles have committed to refunding their former customers for balances remaining on […]
The Cold War returns
The Gorbachev years seem very distant, not that his mission of liberalisation and freedom from the strictures of the Soviet Union went unchallenged but the reversion of Russia under Putin to a totalitarian, territorial regime finds a bedfellow in post war Soviet Union almost as if glasnost never happened. This ‘new’ Cold War however isn’t […]
£250m Big 6 Windfall Rocks Government
In an ‘unfortunate’ piece of political timing, government figures have revealed that the Big 6 energy suppliers will benefit far more greatly from changes in the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) than originally expected. The cuts to the scheme, announced in December 2013, focussed on reducing the burden of administering the £1.4bn per annum ECO scheme […]
Energy Supplier Customer Service Hits Rock Bottom
In the latest of Ofgem’s biennial survey’s on energy consumers’ customer satisfaction, the fourth edition, the report has highlighted that rather than improvement, all but one of the Big 6 energy suppliers have seen their performance worsen over the period. The key findings were: Across the industry, satisfaction has fallen from 40% in 2012 to […]
National Grid agrees demand reduction contracts in readiness for winter shortages
With energy shortages on the agenda for Winter 2014/15 National Grid has acted to implement their Demand-Side Balancing Reserve (DBSR). The DBSR, designed to find willing partners to reduce their demand at pick times over the winter, was launched in June this year, when National Grid was still outwardly confident that black-outs were of no […]
September SMI from Ofgem
Supply Market Indicators In our regular monthly review of Ofgem’s Supply Market Indicators we focus on September’s release from the energy regulator. The September 2014 SMI from Ofgem reported that: They estimate that the average annual dual fuel bill has fallen slightly for the next 12 months at £1,329 from last month’s £1,330 estimate They estimate average […]