Energy efficiency as a service appears to be gaining a foothold within the eduction sector, according to figures from a UK and Ireland provider. In the three months since its debut on London’s AIM, eEnergy Group claims it has signed 48 new lighting as a service contracts, 21 of them with UK and Irish schools. Read more…
Severn Trent joins EV100 in bid to go all electric
Water utility Severn Trent has joined the EV100 campaign, as it pursues its commitment to convert all its service fleet of 2,200 vehicles to electric operation by 2030. Britain’s second largest water retailer began experimenting with Nissan e-NV200s three years ago. It is now looking to install 1,000 charging points across depots. A Severn Trent spokesperson Read more…
Solarcentury sheds UK home PV business, focuses overseas
Clean energy stalwart Solarcentury has quit the UK domestic PV market, selling its residential PV installations arm to Sweden’s leading installer Svea Solar for an undisclosed sum. Founded in 1998, Solarcentury now books 90 per cent of revenue outside the UK. The firm reported £14.4 million profits in the year to March 2019. It claims Read more…
Europe’s corporate PPAs surge a quarter in 2019, but America is braver
Renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) struck by European corporations soared to 8GW in total in 2019, an advocacy consortium reports. The 2.5GW yearly rise was down largely to the continent’s expanded solar and wind capacity, particularly offshore, according to figures released by the RE-SourcePlatform, a grouping of WindEurope, SolarPower Europe, and the RE100 group of Read more…
DfT bets on high powered EV chargers and open data to cut carbon
Increased data sharing between operators of an expanded range of smarter, faster chargers are key planks in decarbonising UK transport, according to the Department of Transport’s latest thinking. A DfT discussion paper highlights that, as power generation has decarbonised, transport is left as Britain’s single biggest emitting sector, contributing 28 per cent of domestic emissions Read more…
UK power: renewables and gas up, nukes and coal down
Renewable power generation of 119 TWh set new records in the UK last year, accounting for 37 per cent of electricity, up 4 percentage points on 2018. The output, detailed in the latest government figures, contributed to the nation’s homegrown carbon emissions dropping 3.6 per cent from 2018. Overall national electricity production was 323.7 TWh, Read more…
Biomass industry calls for coronavirus supply chain support
Deliveries of biomass feedstock to consumers including utilities, NHS hospitals and food producers must be safeguarded, if output is to be maintained as normal through the coronavirus crisis, a trade body has warned government. Biomass Heat Works has sought reassurances from ministers that some 700,000 tonnes a year of pellets can continue to reach industrial Read more…
Thermal battery maker Sunamp partners wind farm crowd-funder Ripple
Electricity from co-operatively owned wind farms powering thermal batteries to produce clean home heat on demand. That’s the vision of two energy firms, Sunamp and Ripple. Sunamp, which makes heat batteries, has signed a collaboration deal with Ripple Energy, a green power ownership platform and community wind farm developer, to provide heat batteries to Ripple’s Read more…
Defra: UK carbon footprint ’21 per cent below 2007 peak’
Greenhouse gas emissions linked to consumption by UK homes and businesses dropped by 21 per cent in the decade to 2017, according to latest government figures. Total GHG output linked to all forms of consumption in the economy stood at 772 million tonnes in 2017. Analysts at Defra said this was down over a fifth Read more…
Gresham House buys 50MW battery project, on track for 330MW
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has bought its biggest battery storage project yet, a 50MW scheme in south Yorkshire. The grid-connected site at Thurcroft near Rotherham is the fund’s tenth UK project. To be constructed by Noriker Power and the fund’s in house developers GH DevCo, it is expected to commission in early summer. Once Read more…
Pennon sells Viridor
Pennon has agreed to sell waste arm Viridor for £4.2bn to a consortium of buyers advised by Kohl Kravis Roberts (KKR). Planets UK Bidco will pay £3.7bn in cash, and take on £500 million in further liabilities, including leases. The victors reportedly outbid rivals including Macquarie Bank’s infrastructure arm and Equitix. Transfer of assets is Read more…
Vattenfall exits EV charging in UK, sells charging network to Statkraft
Swedish state-owned energy firm Vattenfall has sold its British EV charging network to Norwegian state-owned Statkraft. The move follows its sale of UK energy retail business iSupply to French state-owned EDF. Vattenfall said it is re-focussing its UK businesses on generation, B2B sales and heat distribution. The utility entered EV charging in the UK in Read more…
Good Energy strikes big Ørsted deal as B2B and EVs power growth
Good Energy made further inroads into business energy supply in 2019, with B2B accounts outnumbering domestic customers for the first time. Posting full year results, the company said it would push further into the sector by bundling commercial electric vehicle EV charging for businesses with clean energy. Unaudited results released this morning show that the Read more…
Bayford Group buys energy supplier E, targets EVs and storage
Yorkshire-based Bayford Group plc, the diversified property-to-energy supply business, today took a further step into advanced energy markets, completing its purchase of the 320,000 customer accounts of supplier E Gas and Electricity. The supplier reported sales of £160m in 2019. It employs 170 staff at its Birmingham head office. Terms for the deal were not Read more…
Volkswagen aims for terawatt scale V2G
The world’s biggest carmaker is aiming to be a major power player – via electric vehicle batteries. Chief strategist Michael Jost told journalists that VW is aiming to amass 350GWh of storage at its disposal by 2025, Reuters reports. By 2030 the total would grow to 1 terawatt hour, he suggested. “We can guarantee that Read more…
Budget: What has Rishi Sunak done for energy and transport?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s multi-billion budget drive towards a net zero UK targets transport, carbon capture & storage, and aims to create 1.5 million “high-skill, high-wage, low carbon jobs of the future”. But the Budget also sent mixed messages, with fuel duty unchanged for an eleventh year, contrary to pre-Budget briefings, plus £27 billion earmarked over Read more…
Regen: Carbon tax required to decarbonise heat
A massive, sustained drive towards energy efficiency, plus a single, transparent carbon tax levied in proportion to fuels’ emissions, must be first steps in eliminating carbon from heating Britain’s homes and businesses, says energy think tank Regen. In a paper issued today, the advisory group identifies heat decarbonisation as the biggest challenge to the UK’s Read more…
Sainsbury’s drives down fridge consumption with F1 tech
Sainsbury’s has installed aerofoils based on Formula 1 technology on fridges at all of its UK stores, completing a rollout that began with a trial five years ago. The aerofoils are designed to stop cold air escaping from fridges. When air is blown out of the cabinet, the aerofoils direct it back in, saving wasted Read more…
National Grid and UKPN combine on regional reactive power market
National Grid and UK Power Networks are working on a reactive power market trial in the south east – and now seek participants. The two aim to work out how to maximise flexible resource so that it can help balance both local and national power systems and keep voltage levels stable. Across the GB network, Read more…
Gresham House Energy Storage raises £31 million to buy big batteries
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund has tapped backers for a further £31 million to expand its utility-scale battery fleet. It will use the money to add 10MW to the 40MW Glassenbury scheme in Kent. Gresham House bought the unit from VLC in December 2019. The fundraiser also provides cash to acquire another identified asset, already Read more…