week ending 3 May 2013
Paying for Efficiency
Can you think of an industry, besides energy, where companies are actively forced to help their customers buy less of their product? Even when you consider products that are commonly thought of as social ills, such as guns, alcohol and cigarettes, suppliers are not obliged to actively reduce demand for their offerings. It is only energy companies that are forced to fund efficiency schemes designed to ensure their customers use less of their product. But while these companies deserve all the condemnation that is coming their way for initially seeking to game the CERT system and then missing their targets that they had plenty of warning about, there are legitimate concerns about the way in which subsidised efficiency programmes struggle to get customers to sign up to improvement work and as such result in high costs per tonne of carbon saved. These concerns urgently need addressing, not least because they now threaten to undermine the newly launched ECO scheme. Energy companies are not necessarily the best people to pick up the tab for energy efficiency programmes, particularly when they clearly lack the ability to deliver these programmes in a cost-effective manner. The government is introducing demanding new zero carbon home building standards, but these should be made tougher and extended so that you cannot sell, rent or upgrade homes without meeting mandatory energy efficiency standards.
Business Green 3rd May 2013 more >>
Home Appliances
Many home appliances are leading the way in the domestic eco revolution with innovative technologies helping households cut their energy bills, saving them money and raising their eco profile. Topping the list of eco innovative brands is Samsung whose trade-marked ecobubble range, which features innovative technology, is designed to help lower energy bills. The ecobubble washing machines use clever bubble technology to wash clothes. You might think that washing with bubbles is nothing new but Samsung’s unique machines dissolve water and detergent completely in a bubble generator creating a cushion of foam for a deep and effective clean. Because of this technology, you can wash clothes effectively at only 15 C, reducing the costs associated with washing at higher temperatures. There’s also the quick wash option which means lightly soiled clothes can be washed in 15 minutes, further saving time and energy!
Business Green 2nd May 2013 more >>
Solar Investment
The Foresight Group has refinanced its existing portfolio of UK solar assets with the issue of a £60 million solar bond. In conjunction with Independent Debt Capital Markets LLP, Foresight was able to raise the bond against the group’s operational solar farms, located in Kent, Somerset and Wiltshire. Ricardo Pineiro, investment manager at Foresight explained: “After more than five years in the solar sector, we are pleased to have put this structure in place which is forecast to deliver enhanced returns to our equity investors.
Solar Portal 3rd May 2013 more >>
Money AM 3rd May 2013 more >>
Older People & Efficiency
Older and disabled people are put off the government’s flagship energy efficiency programmes because of their complexity and fear of taking on debt, unpublished government research shows.
Guardian 2nd May 2013 more >>
Renewable Heat Premium
Social housing projects are today being offered the chance to bid for £6m of funding to support renewable heat projects, after the government launched the latest phase of its Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) programme. Social landlords can now put forward proposals to the Energy Saving Trust (EST) for a range of renewable heat projects, including heat pumps, solar thermal panels and biomass boilers, which will be considered for funding.
Business Green 2nd May 2013 more >>
DECC 2nd May 2013 more >>
Scottish Water
Scottish Water has installed ten “small-scale” wind turbines at its Stornoway wastewater treatment works to help reduce its energy bill, the water firm announced today. Scottish Water said the project is the first of its kind in Scotland and the turbines could generate up to 500KW of electricity per day. The turbines, constructed by turbine manufacturers Evance, forms part of a wider investment programme by Scottish Water Horizons, the utility’s commercial subsidiary, in renewable generation schemes across Scotland.
Utility Week 2nd May 2013 more >>
Llama’s go solar
British Solar Renewables has received planning permission to build an 11MW PV system at a llama and sheep farm in Truro, Cornwall, UK. The proposed solar farm will incorporate approximately 45,000 solar panels across 24 hectares. The array will provide an extra revenue stream for the farm’s owner, Tom Tripp, who will continue to graze sheep across the land.
PV Tech 2nd May 2013 more >>
Solar Protests
Martin Cotterell: Protestors raise a valid issue that the industry needs to consider. Solar has an incredibly bright and exciting future but we need to look to the long term and make sure we keep everyone, including local communities, on side.
Solar Portal 2nd May2013 more >>
Community Energy Threatened
Community owned renewable energy has received remarkable levels of vocal support from ministers and shadow ministers alike as the Energy Bill has progressed through parliament. However, it currently contains no supportive policy measures and, as it stands, represents a huge threat to this vibrant and rapidly growing sector. Currently, the Energy Bill threatens to prevent larger community schemes over 5MW, such as the Westmill Wind Farm Co-operative in Oxfordshire and the Lochcarnan Community Wind Farm in Scotland, from ever happening again. The problem is that the Bill has been developed with large commercial generators in mind. Participating in the proposed “contracts for difference” system would require a high degree of technical knowledge, creating an excessive administrative burden for community projects largely dependent on passionate and dedicated volunteers. Also, with the end of the Renewables Obligation, electricity suppliers will have little incentive to purchase renewable energy from community generators, who have limited bargaining power.
Guardian 1st May 2013 more >>
National Solar Centre
According to Solarcentury, 25th April, 2013 was a great day for British solar with the opening of the National Solar Centre in St. Austell, Cornwall. As a founding partner, Solarcentury says it is proud to support this key initiative for the greater good of the entire UK solar industry.
RCI 1st May 2013 more >>
PV Strategy
The UK solar industry may only have to wait a matter of weeks before government publishes its first ever solar PV strategy. Addressing delegates at the Large Scale Solar Conference, the minister for energy and climate change, Greg Barker, said that the Department of Energy and Climate Change would be finalising the solar PV strategy “over the coming weeks”. Barker said that the strategy would set out in detail how the government and the private sector can work together to “capitalise on the sector’s growth” to take solar to the “next level”. The strategy will mark the next step of political support for the UK solar industry after solar PV was named as a “key technology” in the updated renewables roadmap in December.
Solar Portal 30th April 2013 more >>
Gaia goes single phase
The UK’s leading small wind turbine manufacturer today announced the roll out of a Single Phase connection option for its hugely successful 133 model. The move more than doubles at a stroke, the available market for the turbine, with thousands of rural homes, businesses crofts and farms previously hampered, now able to join in the green revolution. Gaia-Wind CEO Johnnie Andringa said: “More than half of the rural homes and farms in the UK are on a single phase connection. So we know that up and down the country thousands of potential wind turbine owners are hampered by only having access to single phase electricity.
Altenenergymag 30th April 2013 more >>
Community Hydro
This month a hydro project to generate electricity at a weir on the Thames in Oxford nearly £300,000 from 95 shareholders, three-quarters of whom live in Oxford, within two weeks of opening its offer. Just a few weeks ago, the village of South Brent in Devon financed a large wind turbine almost entirely with local money. Green energy projects owned by communities – long talked about as a way to reduce emissions, cut bills and bring people together – are starting to raise serious amounts of money. But how? The experience at Osney and South Brent suggests that deeply rooted, cautiously run and philanthropic energy ventures can raise significant amounts of capital from local investors – even if the promised financial returns are quite limited.
Guardian 29th April 2013 more >>
Smart Fridges
Anyone popping down to the newsagents to pick up a Sunday paper this week would have been greeted by a terrifying warning. “Big Brother to switch off your fridge” screamed the front page of the Mail on Sunday, succumbing to levels of frothing paranoia that allowed it to brand fridges as “sinister”.The Mail’s complaint was supported by a handful of comments from rent-a-quote libertarian MP David Davis and fridge manufacturer Electrolux, which has obviously decided that while its rivals see smart fridges as an opportunity it regards them as a threat, and centres on a draft EU proposal that fridges should be made to include smart technology that would allow “outside forces” to control your appliances.
Business Green 29th April 2013 more >>
Energy Co-ops
Carbon Co-op, which launched in 2011, is one of a new generation of co-ops that are now aiming to address the critical issue of climate change by making houses more energy-efficient, which in turn will slash carbon emissions and in the long-run save homeowners money. “The big energy companies dominate the energy-efficiency market because they are forced to by Ofgem, the energy regulator. However, very few people trust the big energy companies any more because of the recent mis-selling scandals.”
Guardian 29th April 2013 more >>
Community Energy
The Scottish government has welcomed new figures showing it is well on track to install half a gigawatt of community-owned wind farms and other renewable energy projects by 2020. The news came as the Westminster government reiterated that new plans designed to encourage community ownership of clean energy projects and offer communities close to wind farms a range of incentives will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
Business Green 29th April 2013 more >>
Click Green 29th April 2013 more >>
STV 28th April 2013 more >>
Solar Bone of Contention
Energy and climate change minister Greg Barker, has warned that the UK solar industry must work hard to maintain the public support it currently enjoys. Addressing delegates at Solar Media’s Large Scale Solar Conference in Truro, Cornwall, Barker said: “Solar is rightly popular. But if we aren’t careful, or if the sector expands inappropriately, that invaluable popular public support will slip through our fingers. We don’t want solar to become a bone of public contention like onshore wind.”
Solar Portal 29th April 2013 more >>
Solar Caravan
Britain’s largest holiday park owner is trialling the use of solar panels on its holiday homes, after a holiday home in Rockley Park Holiday Park, Poole was fitted with a solar PV array.
Solar Portal 29th April 2013 more >>
York AD
City of York Council in the UK has given the green light to Peel Environmental’s plans for an Anaerobic Digestion and Horticultural Glasshouse Facility on the former North Selby Mine site, New Road, Wheldrake in Yorkshire.
Renewable Energy Focus 29th April 2013 more >>
Edinburgh Solar
The recent installation of a large-scale ground-mount solar PV plant in Dalkeith, just outside Edinburgh, is are two other landmarks for Scottish PV: one from the past, and one for the future. Napier College’s Merchiston campus in south Edinburgh was, back in 2005, the site of one the UK’s largest PV installations at the time. A 156-panel building-mounted installation on the south facing wall of the Jack Kilby Computing Centre was a joint partnership between the School of Engineering and the Energy Saving Trust (EST). The EST was one of a few pots that could then be accessed to deploy solar PV in the UK. The tag of Scotland’s largest solar PV installation by Dalkeith may be a short-lived claim however. Less than five miles to the east lies one of two IKEA stores in Scotland. Opened in 1999, the IKEA store at the Straiton Retail Park in Loanhead complements IKEA’s second site in Glasgow opened in 2001. Each of these plants is included within IKEA’s global renewables strategy that has all IKEA stores consuming all their energy needs from renewables, and being 100% energy neutral by 2020.
Solar Portal 29th April 2013 more >>
Smart Meters
Big brother to switch off your fridge: Power giants to make millions - but you must pay for ‘sinister’ technology.
Daily Mail 27th April 2013 more >>
Telegraph 28th April 2013 more >>
Consumers can and surely will control when their dishwashers, washing machines and electric cars will be able to run under proposals for ‘demand response’, not ‘big brother’ as reported in today’s press. However, plans to achieve this have not been thought out properly yet by the powers that be at both UK and EU level.
Dave Toke’s Green Energy Blog 28th April 2013 more >>
Wadebridge
The town of Wadebridge in Cornwall has been short-listed as one of Britain’s top eco-towns. One in ten householders there has signed up to the Wadebridge Renewable Energy Network. The Energy Minister visited to see how local people are also being encouraged to generate their own power.
ITV 26th April 2013 more >>
Farming Energy
FARMERS have been instrumental in creating a thriving renewables in Scotland, the president of the NFUS has said. Speaking at the opening of AgriEnergy 2013 today (Thursday) – a new two-day renewables event being held at Thainstone Centre, Inverurie, near Aberdeen – Nigel Miller said the country had made ‘huge progress’ in generating green energy and the sector was ready to move to the ‘next level’.
Farmers Guardian 25th April 2013 more >>
Biomass Boilers
THE price of diesel has rocketed from 7p to 70p per litre in the last decade, making drying grain and heating sheds an expensive business. Until recently, the idea of using straw as a fuel instead of oil seemed far-fetched. Not least because of the prohibitive cost of a biomass boiler. But the introduction of a new Government subsidy scheme has changed this.
Farmers Guardian 25th April 2013 more >>
AD in Dorset
Dairy site is a global anaerobic digestion trendsetter: A relatively small dairy site in Dorset is receiving international attention for its pioneering anaerobic digestion (AD) plant.
Food Manufacturer 10th April 2013 more >>