week ending 6 December 2013
Keeping Solar Small
Community energy projects are the right way to keep the lights on, the head of a solar co-operative in Wedmore, Somerset, has told the BBC. His thoughts are echoed by the man behind the Glastonbury festival, Michael Eavis. People are concerned about the dominance of the “Big Six” energy companies, they say. Rob Richley of the Wedmore Community Power Co-operative was speaking following the government’s announcement of cuts in subsidies to solar and onshore wind energy. £800,000 was needed to build the community “solar paddocks”. The funds have been raised by selling shares. More than half of the investors are locals.
BBC 6th Dec 2013 more >>
Networks
The UK needs to have a ‘major rethink’ of its energy network, according to a group of energy experts assembled by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET). The group’s Electricity Networks: Handling a Shock to the System report warns that the UK needs to start taking a holistic view of the power grid to ensure the demands of decarbonising the energy mix are met.
Solar Portal 6th Dec 2013 more >>
Green Gas
National Grid is delivering renewable gas through its network after connecting up its first biomethane plant in October. The £8 million Future Biogas plant near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, will inject up to 12,000 cubic metres of gas into the grid each day. The facility will ferment 35,000 tonnes of maize, grass and other biomass a year to produce the biogas. National Grid aims to connect 80 similar projects over the next eight years.
Utility Week 5th Dec 2013 more >>
ECO Changes
Letter British Gas: The changes to the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) proposed by the Government mean there will be more help for Britain’s homes, not less (“British Gas fought help for coldest homes”, Dec 3). There will also be a wider range of energy efficiency measures, reaching more homes in a more affordable way. The changes include a new minimum commitment by the industry to deliver 100,000 solid wall insulation measures, providing certainty for this market over a longer period. At British Gas we have already signed several multimillion-pound contracts with local partners and our ECO commitments this year alone total more than £400 million. Loft and easy-to-treat cavity wall insulation, which are among the most cost effective measures, will now be far more widely taken up. And all vulnerable and low income households will benefit from the overall reduction in bills, in the case of British Gas worth an average of £53 next year. We expect to help 1.2 million homes with energy efficiency measures under the ECO programme, that’s 100,000 more than under the old scheme. We believe the ECO programme has been strengthened, not weakened, and we fully support it.
Times 5th Dec 2013 more >>
Solar Forecourt
The makers of the new canopies for two Sainsbury’s forecourts are claiming a world first in that the forecourt roof not only contains photovoltaic (PV) glass to generate electricity but is also transparent.
Forecourt Trader 5th Dec 2013 more >>
Solar Portal 3rd Dec 2013 more >>
Energy Entrepreneurs
The government is poised to launch the latest phase of its £35m Energy Entrepreneurs Fund next month, inviting applications for funding from startups focused on energy efficiency or power generation technologies that can address the so-called “trilemma” of providing affordable, secure and clean energy.
Business Green 5th Dec 2013 more >>
Straw Fuels
Visitors to Raymond Blanc’s award-winning Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons hotel and restaurant near Oxford are unlikely to notice that there is something a little bit different about the building’s many fireplaces. They may look like your conventional country house fireplace, but the logs that they burn in them are anything but conventional. Blanc is the largest customer of UK startup Straw Fuels, which provides the hotel with special “carbon negative” logs made from waste straw - a lower cost and ultra-efficient alternative to conventional logs that also deliver significant emissions reductions.
Business Green 5th Dec 2013 more >>
Solar Farms
Consumers face paying millions of pounds too much for solar farms after ministers handed the industry subsidies 10 per cent higher than it had asked for. Industry body the Solar Trade Association said on Wednesday it “can’t understand why” ministers rejected its suggestion to cut subsidies further – reducing the cost of ‘green levies’ on consumer energy bills. “From 2016 to 2019 are actually higher than we asked for,” the Solar Trade Association (STA) said. The Department of Energy and Climate Change set out plans to guarantee new solar farms built in 2017-18 a price of £110 for every ‘megawatt-hour’ (MWh) unit of power they generate - about twice the current market price.
Telegraph 4th Dec 2013 more >>
Community Energy - local authorities
Enthusiasm for community wellbeing is fuelling a counter-revolution in locally generated energy, in both Britain and Ireland, partly to address rising levels of fuel poverty affecting an estimated 3.5m UK families. Some talk boldly of “re-municipalising energy”, with an eye on Hamburg, Germany’s second city. Recently, in a referendum there, voters backed a council plan to take control of the local power grid. Here, authorities from Labour-controlled Southampton to Conservative-run Woking, in Surrey, are finding it cheaper to provide heat and light for their own buildings. A string of others are considering local power schemes. Currently, mainly council houses and public buildings are powered locally, along with some shops and offices – rather than entire cities – although Southampton’s municipal plant, run with a private company, provides electricity for the city’s huge port, as well as for council buildings. Hot water was originally tapped from a deep geothermal well for a district heating scheme 25 years ago, and this was followed by a combined heat and power plant. But the city hopes soon to provide heat and light for 1,500 council houses as part of a £30m district heating and insulation scheme triggered by authorities once again being allowed to take direct control of council house funding. More than 5,000 houses could follow. Similarly in Woking, council buildings, offices and flats are powered by energy from a company owned by the local council. The company, Thameswey, also generates power from a much larger local plant for much of central Milton Keynes, in Buckinghamshire. Thameswey opened its first combined heat and power scheme in 2001 to supply electricity and heating to civic offices, and surrounding business, in Woking town centre. The initial £7m funding was borrowed on Thameswey’s behalf by Woking council, which then lent it back to the company at 2% above the going interest rate. Currently it has 1.3 miles of heating pipes and electricity wires in the town (with a further 2.5 miles in central Milton Keynes). The scheme will soon expand to serve a new, £150m shopping and leisure centre, with 300 flats.
Guardian 4th Dec 2013 more >>
AD
If you haven’t heard about anaerobic digestion yet, where have you been? This innovative treatment is an ideal way for businesses in the agricultural and industrial sectors to recycle their waste and cut their carbon footprint. In the 2007 Waste Strategy for England, businesses were encouraged to consider anaerobic digestion (or AD) as a way to assist in meeting the UK energy targets.
Business Green 4th Dec 2013 more >>
Solar Costs
Solar power will be able to compete with natural gas generation effectively by 2025. This is according to Lux Research in its latest document, Cheap Natural Gas: Fracturing Dreams of a Solar Future, which suggests if the environmentally-friendly alternative was unsubsidised, it would be aggressively priced within the next 12 years.
Acenet 4th Dec 2013 more >>
PV-Tech 3rd Dec 2013 more >>
Renewable Heat
The government has today confirmed new support for air-water heat pumps and commercial and industrial energy from waste plants under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme, along with increased payments to a slew of green technologies. A consultation response published today also reveals greater backing for biomass, geothermal energy, ground-source heat pumps and solar thermal technology as ministers look to attract investment towards delivering the UK’s renewable target and tackling heating emissions, which account for around half of the country’s overall emissions.
Business Green 4th Dec 2013 more >>
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced that the tariff for domestic solar thermal installations under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme will be set at 19.2 pence per kWh. DECC minister Greg Barker confirmed the price, which was first announced in July this year, when 19.2p/kWh was stated as the minimum tariff that would be applied. Barker said RHI schemes “are designed to stimulate considerable growth in the deployment of renewable heating technologies in the coming years”.
Solar Portal 4th Dec 2013 more >>
European Efficiency Target
A coalition of insulation companies and green groups have called on the EU to set a 30 per cent energy saving target for 2030 in a move they claim could save $335bn in energy bills and create more than a million jobs. The European Commission is planning to unveil proposals for its 2030 climate and energy framework proposals next month that should include a carbon reduction target to build on the 20 per cent goal it is on track to meet in 2020.
Business Green 4th Dec 2013 more >>
Efficient Lighting
London is set for the largest-ever single investment to modernise its street lighting in a move that should reduce energy consumption by 40 per cent. Around 35,000 of the capital’s 52,000 street lights will be replaced by energy-efficient LEDs by 2016, while a new system will also be introduced to remotely manage and control lighting levels in line with traffic flows and road usage.
Business Green 3rd Dec 2013 more >>
Ten thousand energy efficient and eco-friendly street lamps are to be installed in Glasgow to replace outdated sodium lights and cut carbon emissions.
Central Scotland Green Network 25th Nov 2013 more >>
Solar Investment
Renewable energy investment company Low Carbon and Macquarie Capital are collaborating to invest in 300 MW of solar energy in the UK. They plan to construct a portfolio of solar projects that could power up to 100,000 homes per year. Macquarie intends to provide construction funding to developed, investment-ready renewable energy projects. The first phase of the collaboration will total 25.7 MWp with an investment of up to £29m to fund the construction of three ground mounted photovoltaic solar projects, two based in Cornwall and one in Wales.
H&V News 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Solar Portal 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Lancashire Evening Post 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Autumn Statement
The overall package is carbon neutral. Watering down the Energy Company Obligation (ECO), by giving companies an extra two years to meet its targets (the deadline has been extended from March 2015 to March 2017), actually increases emissions. By the government has announced various energy saving measures, for home buyers, landlords and public sector buildings, to offset this impact. These measures will cost £540m over three years. Around 60,000 homes will benefit from the scheme allowing people to get £1,000 to spend on energy saving measures when they buy a new home. Funding for Green Deal Communities is being extended from £20m to £80m. The Green Deal is being “strengthened, streamlined and reformed”. There are more details here, in a separate news release. You could read this as an admission that so far it has not been a glittering success.
Guardian 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Responding to announcements today (Monday 2 December 2013) by Government around cuts to the Energy Company Obligation and a new package of measures around the Green Deal, Friends of the Earth Energy Campaigner Sophie Neuburg said: “The Government has crumbled in response to pressure from the Big Six, leaving the fuel poor and the environment to pick up the bill. The effect of all the measures announced today is that funding for energy efficiency has fallen by over £700 million, condemning thousands of people to shiver in heat-leaking homes. If Ministers were serious about tackling fuel bills they would introduce a comprehensive energy efficiency programme and take urgent steps to wean our economy off increasingly costly fossil fuels – the real driving force behind rocketing fuel bills.”
FoE 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Greg Barker has conceded that the changes announced to national energy efficiency schemes today will result in a “short term” fall in carbon saved, but insisted the shortfall will be made up with compensatory measures. The raft of changes to the Green Deal and Energy Company Obligation (ECO) initiatives revealed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) are designed to save £50 on consumer bills without compromising on the government’s green commitments.
Business Green 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
The government formally announced today that it’s going to weaken one of its key energy efficiency programmes as part of its package of measures to reduce consumer bills. But it’s sweetened the pill - by also announcing a raft of measures to strengthen its energy efficiency policies elsewhere. How does it all balance out? There will be £540 million of new funding for energy efficiency measures, according to the announcement. But that needs to be balanced against the loss of funding elsewhere - and many of the new measures appear to already exist in one form or another. What do the measures add up to? At this stage, it’s hard to assess the government’s claim that the changes won’t mean a lessening of its commitment to energy efficiency - or that the changes are ‘carbon neutral’ in total. ECO hasn’t been hit as hard as expected, and some money will still be spent on tackling fuel poverty. But few profound changes appear to have been introduced. Many of the ‘new’ announcements look like pre-existing programmes that have been recycled, extended or incentivised.
Carbon Brief 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has confirmed what measures it will take to reduce energy bills after the Prime Minister’s pledge to rollback ‘green levies’.
Solar Portal 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Fuel Poverty
The government’s lead advisers on energy efficiency and fuel poverty have both condemned changes to energy bills as “sticking plasters” and “watering down” the only measures that permanently reduce costs to consumers. On Monday, the energy secretary, Ed Davey, announced a complex set of measures that he said would cut the average bill by £50. Most of this saving comes from cuts to the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) that requires energy companies to insulate homes and subsidise energy efficiency measures for hard-to-treat properties. “We have policies that are among the best in the world, which we are unfortunately watering down,” said Peter Boyd, expert chair of the energy efficiency deployment office within the Department of E nergy and Climate Change(Decc). Boyd, whose role is to provide strategic guidance on energy efficiency to ministers, said: “Energy efficiency is the one piece of the government’s energy policies that can really cut bills in the future” - because more efficient homes use less fuel. Boyd told the Guardian that as well as delivering warmer homes with lower bills, better energy efficiency delivers local jobs, a high return on investment for homes, businesses and public buildings, and big, affordable reductions in carbon emissions. He said the UK could be a world leader in energy efficiency. “What is disappointing is that the UK is not yet fully grasping the quadruple prize of energy efficiency,” he said. Derek Lickorish, chair of the government’s Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, condemned all political parties for not taking energy efficiency seriously. “This is a sticking plaster and platitudes competition. What we need is a cross-party unity to deliver permanent reductions to bills through energy efficiency.”
Guardian 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
More than half a million homes are wasting hundreds of pounds a year on energy because of delays to the Government’s subsidised insulation scheme, a report has found. As the coalition prepared to propose cutting £50 from fuel bills, it faced criticism over rising bills caused by a big fall in loft insulations. Only 120,000 lofts were insulated in the first six months of 2013 compared with 860,000 in the last six months of 2012. There was a similar decline in the number of cavity walls insulated over the same period, down from 360,000 to 110,000. Solid-wall insulations fell from 60,000 to 5,000, according to the Green Alliance think-tank, which based its report on figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change. At this rate it would take 24 years to insulate the remaining 5.7 million poorly insulated lofts and 770 years to insulate 7.7 million solid-wall homes, the report said.
Times 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
A committee of MPs has accused ministers of “shifting the goal posts” to reduce the number of households in England classed as in fuel poverty. The definition of fuel poverty would be changed by amendments to the Energy Bill so that 2.4 million were classed as fuel poor rather than 3.2 million. The Environmental Audit Committee says that is unacceptable. The government insists the changes help “to get a better understanding of the causes and depth of fuel poverty”.
BBC 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
The Government is attempting to manipulate official figures to bring down fuel poverty, it is claimed today. A clause in the Energy Bill will change the definition of the key poverty indicator, reducing the number of English households counted as “fuel-poor” from 3.2 million to 2.4 million overnight. The EAC report also criticised the Government’s decision to weaken its legislative commitment to fuel poverty. This means it will no longer require the elimination of fuel poverty by 2016, but instead ask for it to be addressed by a date to be set later.
Independent 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
The government has “shifted the goal posts” by rolling back on a commitment to eradicate fuel poverty and fiddling official statistics, according to a new report. Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee says government programmes to help low-income households insulate their homes are a vital part of the solution, and should not be cut.
Carbon Brief 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Green Deal
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has announced a range of reforms intended to ‘streamline and improve’ the flailing Green Deal. The department is working on simplifying the Green Deal process for the public; an online tool will be launched that will look to give consumers advice on energy efficiency. In addition, the Green Deal advice report will be simplified making it clearer and easier to understand and consumers will be given better signposting to companies that provide the services they require.
Solar Portal 2nd Dec 2013 more >>
Carbon Innovation
The new £10.5 million, Edinburgh Centre for Carbon Innovation, which is aimed at bringing together business and academia to advance the low-carbon economy, has become the first listed building to achieve one of the UK’s highest green building awards. The The design of the former Old High School building in Infirmary Street, refurbished by Malcolm Fraser Architects, has won a Breeam (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology) award from the worldwide testing and certification company.
Herald 1st Dec 2013 more >>