renewables Archives - Page 6 of 7

Why is climate change policy a leaky mess?

19 August 2015 admin 0

I’ve just read a carbon abatement report for a natural gas pipeline that runs across hundreds of miles of continental Eastern Europe. It’s leaking 2.4 millions of tons of methane (CH4) into the atmosphere every year. The equivalent of about 60 million tons of CO2 (going by the standard equivalency measure). And that’s just from one facility in one country. Multiply the issue across the natural gas systems of Europe alone, and the equivalent of billions of tons of CO2 is spewing out into the atmosphere for no reason other than faulty well valves and leaking low-medium pressure pipes. You [...]

CMA energy market investigation: The UK needs a carbon tax?

10 July 2015 admin 0

On the surface, the latest CMA energy market investigation (Competition and Markets Authority) report appears to be criticising the big six consumer energy suppliers (CMA reports). Consumers have footed a bill between 2009-2013 (the report focus) that’s £1.2bn per year more than they should have paid in a competitive marketplace, the CMA concluded. It has led to rumours of a price cap whilst reforms are made to the energy market. The CMA chairman, Roger Whitcomb was quoted saying “There are millions of customers paying too much for their energy bills - but they don’t have to,” but [...]

Declining renewable power subsidies vs. smart grids

24 June 2015 admin 0

Last week the wind industry was shocked (but not exactly surprised) by the government's announcement it would be ending subsidies for onshore wind projects a year earlier than previously promised. It’s a move that potentially threatens thousands of new jobs and places millions of pounds of investment at risk. But what we learn from declining renewable power subsidies is their failure to make low-carbon power a long term commercial proposition without smart grids. Up until now, UK renewable energy policies have been driven by carbon reducing logic. The principles are sound enough, fight climate change by reducing the [...]

350 Signs New Peruvian Solar Development Partnership

12 May 2015 admin 0

After a successful trip to Lima earlier this year, we’re excited to announce we’ve partnered with a large Peruvian engineering firm ($100m turnover) to begin operations within Peru’s nascent solar energy industry. Our role is to take the backing of our partner’s enterprise-scale industrial build capacity and establish a local solar development company focused on small-scale solar parks facilitating rural electrification. Currently, there is significant Peruvian government support for these initiatives, high local electricity prices and geographically speaking, Peru receives the highest solar irradiation in the world (a function of global position, altitude and cloud cover). Therefore, we anticipate [...]

Election Special: How to vote for lower carbon emissions?

29 April 2015 admin 0

As Britain is gripped by election fever it seems the issue of climate change and CO2 reduction has taken a back seat. But rising global CO2 emissions will have a significant impact on the nation’s future health and economic prosperity, so although the c-word isn’t high on the campaign agenda it remains a key underlying issue for the next government. More importantly, assuming the objective of a modern environmental policy should be (in part at least) to reduce carbon emissions, it should be pretty easy to work out which party has got the best offering… right? The story so far: As [...]

Living the good life: off-grid home tech… and pigs.

1 April 2015 admin 0

Last week we wrote about the emerging home battery scene, and how Nissan and Tesla have been developing interoperability between EVs and domestic home systems. A great way to go off-grid and devised (originally) by enterprising DIY energy geeks with a salvaged Nissan LEAF. But away from the big corporate spotlights on cutting edge tech, did you know some German energy companies are providing battery kits now? This started when the German Government reduced the Feed In Tariff it provides to domestic solar when dispatching electricity to Germany’s grid. And it tells us something about the chaos [...]

Disrupting the grid: Nissan and Tesla EVs for home energy

25 March 2015 admin 0

Clean renewable home energy has an arch nemesis. It’s not (as some green narratives might suggest) powerful oil lobbies holding it back for the sake of profits though, it’s much more boring than that. The supervillain of clean energy is infrastructure: The electricity grids of the modern world are based on old fashioned technologies and ideas of how to ship electricity from power stations to your plug sockets at home. But over the last couple of years a bit of lateral thinking to solve the grid problem has emerged from a surprising area. It’s not from city electrical engineers, or solar [...]

Renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market?

19 March 2015 admin 0

A couple of days ago, The Centre for Policy Studies released a report titled: Central Planning with Market Features: how renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market. (You can read the report here). The UK press jumped onto this story and it's fair to say I agree with the findings of the report. I have known the root cause of the problem with renewable subsidies for a while: How can solar power really work in the UK market? We don’t get much sun anyway (when it’s not cloudy) and you never really know when it’s not going to be cloudy, which [...]

Electricity markets and politics appear complicated?

17 March 2015 admin 0

You’d be forgiven for thinking that green energy, electricity markets and politics appear complicated. A couple of weeks back we saw Greenpeace criticising the UK Government’s UK Export Finance scheme’s decision to loan $1bn in funding packages to a deal including Pemex (the Mexican oil group) calling the coalition government's green credentials into doubt. Last week German electricity giant (and UK ‘big six’ energy supplier) E.ON posted record annual losses blaming subsidised wind and solar for the downward trend in wholesale electricity prices. But we also know the EIS / SEIS tax breaks for investors that [...]

CfD auction results: a ROC and a hard place

3 March 2015 admin 0

Last week the UK Government announced the winners (and losers) in the UK’s first Green Energy CfD (Contracts for Difference) auction. This will be remembered as a turning point in green energy policy, the landmark beginning-of-the-end of indirect subsidies. In total, around £4bn has been awarded to 27 green energy projects (compared to £16bn spent in the old indirect subsidy schemes last year). It is being presented as a win for the consumer and the taxpayer by the coalition government, a fudge by critics and a failure by the UK solar power industry. So which is [...]

Tag: renewables