Ofgem’s neglect of business energy customers escalates yet again In late July Ofgem announced the final stage of its ‘Statutory consultation on non-domestic automatic rollovers and contract renewals’ Despite this announcement receiving little fanfare and far less media scrutiny compared to the Competition and Markets Authority investigation into the energy sector, the consultation should have […]
Fracking for Good
Matthew Hancock, the newly appointed energy minister this week announced that the UK was once again open for business for fracking, the controversial technique for gas extraction. Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into the ground at high pressure to hydraulically fracture shale rocks and extract oil and gas trapped within them. As part […]
SSE and UKPN Fined for Power Cuts
Belated Christmas Presents ? SSE’s electricity distribution arm and UK Power Networks, the pylon and wire owners for 17m customers across the South East, London, Southern England, Eastern England and Northern Scotland have been fined for the extended power cuts that affected nearly 1m customers over Christmas 2013. Announcing the fines, Ofgem signalled a zero […]
Latest Ofgem SMI Controversy
Supply Market Indicators Normally our review of the latest Ofgem Supply Market Indicators is a dry affair with us generally underlining the prevalence of government levies and network upgrade costs as key drivers of the energy price. We often also point out that Ofgem’s obsession with supplier profit is unhealthy and at times misleading. This […]
Inundated Green Deal Closes Early
The rise of the slow starter The green deal, mocked for its ineffectiveness, low take up and failure to register with the public has been transformed in its current iteration to such a degree that it has failed once again. This time the cause was its unexpected success. The original scheme offered high-interest loans to […]
Drax Coal to Biomass Conversion CfD Appeal Defeated
Final Round KO to DECC Drax Energy, Europe’s largest coal fired power station has accepted defeat in their bid to overturn the government’s controversial decision to renege on a subsidy agreement under their flagship contracts for differences (CfDs) scheme. Drax had been told they would receive subsidies for converting a further two of their coal […]
DECC Appeal Drax Biomass Conversion
Drax and Double Drax Part 2 Following the controversial selection of recipients for the first round of enhanced subsidy packages under the Contracts for Differences scheme for new renewable generation and the apparent largesse of the government in the level of the awards made. Together with Drax’s legal challenge to missing out on the promised […]
Ofgem vs Ovo Energy Dispute
In a somewhat baffling spat between the energy regulator and a new entrant energy supplier accusations are flying around that innovation is contravening rules and that the regulator is stifling progress. That’s the situation that Ofgem and Ovo Energy have got themselves into. The issue is around surplus monies being held in energy company bank accounts […]
Solar Subsidy Winners and Losers
The Renewable Energy Foundation has revealed in a new report that the cost to customers of subsidising solar energy has increased four fold in just two years with further increases expected. According to the report the Feed In Tariff subsidy that is sourced from energy bills has been used to pay £580m towards the installation […]
CMA, the Banking industry
The headlines looked promising: The Bank of England’s latest report on lending to businesses showed a significant turnaround with lending to businesses increasing £3.4bn in May compared to an average monthly decrease of £2.1bn since December. Below those headlines though the flow, and positivity dissipated with SMEs seeing another fall in the number of loans […]