MPs have urged government to be more ambitious about phasing out petrol and diesel cars. They said its current target of 2040 should be tightened up and brought forward to 2032 to give industry and consumers sharper signals that the tide is turning. The Beis Select Committee report includes evidence from the energy and automotive Read more…
Domestic DSR: Social Energy lands first megawatt FFR contract, plans 350MW by 2020
Start-up Social Energy is partnering with Duracell in a bid to crack domestic demand-side response. The firm thinks it can amass a 350MW portfolio of 3kW and 6kW home battery storage units by 2020. The company has landed a megawatt firm frequency response (FFR) contract with National Grid, having passed tests for frequency measurement and Read more…
Hackney Council to launch energy company
Hackney Council is planning to launch an energy company. The council says it “will supply clean, affordable energy, generate our own renewable electricity, and plough profits back into the heart of our borough”. Keen to address both fuel poverty and environmental concerns, the plan is to sell “price competitive renewable energy for customers both within and Read more…
Will new frequency services suit DSR’s old guard?
National Grid has won plaudits for overhauling its suite of balancing services. But some industrial firms worry that what they have done for years may no longer be as highly valued – and could do with some pointers on emerging opportunities. Breedon Cement’s Hope Works has been providing DSR for around 20 years, according to Read more…
Government to end subsidies for urban biomass from January 2019
Government plans to end subsidy under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for biomass in ‘urban’ areas from January 2019. The department for business, energy and industrial strategy (Beis) has set out its thoughts in a consultation. Under its proposals, domestic and non-domestic biomass in towns and cities will no longer receive support. The government says Read more…
Beis Select Committee to investigate gas security
MPs will investigate UK gas security following pressure from major energy users. The Gas Security Group had been pushing for government to quantify the consequences of a lack of gas storage even before the cold snap last March forced National Grid to issue a warning that the UK was close to running out of gas. Read more…
Drax spends £700m on 2.6GW of Scottish Power’s generation assets
Drax plans to spend £702m on around 2.6GW of of pumped storage, hydro and gas-fired generation assets from Scottish Power parent Iberdrola. The proposed transaction, reported last month, includes the Cruachan pumped storage hydro (440MW), run-of-river hydro locations at Galloway and Lanark (126MW), and four CCGT stations: Damhead Creek (805MW), Rye House (715MW), Shoreham (420MW) and Blackburn Read more…
Nortek launches new HVAC customer service initiative
Nortek Global HVAC UK has outlines its new customer service initiative in this sponsored post. Nortek carried out an extensive research study in 2017, across its entire customer base and the HVAC marketplace as a whole across the UK and continental Europe. Respondents recommended that the company consolidate all of its HVAC brands in the Read more…
Winter margin fine, says National Grid, but prepare for price volatility
National Grid has forecast ample headroom on the power system this winter of 11.7%. But it has warned businesses to prepare for price volatility due to weather effects on renewables generation and changes to cashout prices in the Balancing Mechanism. The latter aspect is because rule changes agreed some years ago come into effect from Read more…
Renewables top 42GW, generate almost a third of total power in spring
UK renewable generation capacity reached 42.2GW in the three months to 30 June, up 10% year on year, according to government figures. Renewables generated 31.7% of all power generated, a record as a percentage of total generation, if not total output. Offshore wind drove more than half of the increase in capacity, and as a Read more…
Big Five: SSE-Npower merger clears competition hurdles
SSE and Npower’s retail businesses will merge following the nod from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), bringing an end to the era of the ‘big six’ suppliers. The CMA had indicated in August that SSE-Npower deal was in the clear, today it granted official confirmation. Its investigation centred on whether customers on Npower and SSE’s Read more…
Ingenious Infrastructure invests in Reactive Technologies
Ingenious Infrastructure has invested an undisclosed sum in Reactive Technologies. The smart grid firm said it would use the money to fund global expansion. Reactive Technologies operates in a number of areas. It is developing services for grid operators to measure and manage inertia, has a demand-side response or ‘optimisation’ platform for corporate energy users, Read more…
National Grid calls for new reactive power providers in Mersey and South Wales
National Grid is looking for help to manage voltage levels in Mersey and South Wales and wants to hear what potential providers can do via a request for information. The Electricity System Operator (ESO) intends to tender for services in 2019/20 and may also tender again the following year. National Grid uses reactive power services Read more…
Ceres Power to build fuel cell manufacturing plant in Surrey
Ceres Power is to build a fuel cell manufacturing facility in Redhill, Surrey. Manufacturing capacity will initially be 2MW, expandable to 10MW. The firm said it would act as a template to develop larger plants with international partners under licence, growing to 100MWs per year capacity. The company’s strategy is to generate revenues through licensing its Read more…
LED lighting: How Quorn Foods and others turned energy efficiency into RoI
LED Eco Lights outlines some recent installations that delivered payback in months, cut maintenance and created better, brighter workplaces in this sponsored post. Use of LED lighting is on the rise in factories and warehouses with companies reaping the benefits of huge energy savings and significantly reduced maintenance costs. Lighting levels can also be greatly Read more…
Prefab boiler rigs: save time, labour and cost
Remeha outlines the cost and time saving benefits of prefabricated boiler rigs in this sponsored post. As timescales get shorter and on-site skills in ever greater demand, a bespoke prefabricated rig option from Remeha can be the perfect solution to some of the problems facing consultants today. Rigs are designed and manufactured to meet the Read more…
UK Power Reserve takes another 60MW of battery storage from Fluence
UK Power Reserve has chosen Fluence to provide the second 60MW tranche of battery storage it requires to meet Capacity Market commitments. The reserve power specialist had already contracted Fluence, a Siemens-AES joint venture, to deliver 60MW of batteries to fulfil the 15-year Capacity Market agreements it secured in 2016. By contracting the firm for the Read more…
Britvic signs 100% renewable power deal with Eon
Britvic has signed a four year contract with Eon that will see all of its GB sites powered by 100% renewable electricity. The drinks maker will also use Eon’s risk management service to take advantage of wholesale market opportunities while mitigating risk. Switching to renewable power should enable Britvic to save 17,000 tonnes CO2e per Read more…
DNO flex procurement: The learning so far from UKPN and WPD
Head of smart grid development, Sotiris Georgiopoulos, says UK Power Networks has incorporated learning from last year’s inaugural flex tender into its procurement roadmap, published in August. Customers with interruptible processes had indicated that they could provide response for relatively short times, but that hours on end may be challenging. Georgiopoulos says that is why Read more…
Yü Group wins Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club energy supply contract
Nottingham-based Yü Group has won the contract to supply energy to Trent Bridge, home of Nottinghamshire County Cricket. The three-year deal also includes provisions for renewable energy solutions and other energy related initiatives. “Our partnership will allow Trent Bridge to benefit from our offering, with the convenience of bringing together the gas, electricity and water Read more…
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