The Drax power plant will cease commercial coal-fired power generation in March next year, four years ahead of the UK’s deadline to quit the fuel, the company has confirmed. Once Europe’s largest coal-fired power station, coal accounted for only 3 per cent of the Yorkshire plant’s generation in 2019, rendered uneconomic by rising carbon prices. Read more…
United Utilities buys 2MW battery, co-locates with solar, plans flex trades
United Utilities has ordered a 2MW battery storage system from Zenobe. Believed to be the biggest yet in the UK water industry, the utility will deploy the battery to support PV at its Clifton Marsh treatment plant near Preston. Targeted for full operation in late May, the battery will enable United to trade in flexibility Read more…
Britain’s corporates the sick men of Europe on low carbon spending
British companies ‘last in Europe’ in spending on low carbon business processes, survey by Carbon Disclosure Project finds UK corporations contributed only three per cent of Europe’s investment in carbon-cutting technologies last year, a survey among members of the Carbon Disclosure Project reveals. Its ‘Doubling Down’ report analyses carbon-cutting budgets declared for 2019 by CDP Read more…
Japan’s Sumitomo invests £36m in cryogenic storage firm Highview Power
Liquid air energy storage firm Highview Power has landed a $46m (£35.6m) investment from Japanese manufacturing giant Sumitomo Heavy Industries. Lancashire-based Highview has been seeking funds to extend its cryo battery technology, which can deliver long duration storage at scale. In 2018 the company opened a 5 MW/15 MWh pilot in Bury. It is now developing Read more…
Heathrow claims 93 per cent emissions cut, offsets rest, targets zero
Heathrow Airport says it has cut emissions 93 per cent since 1990 and has committed to offset the remainder. As such, the airport has achieved carbon neutral status. The firm said it has spent £100m on energy efficiency measures since 1990, plus investment in on-site generation. It also buys clean power. However, the most up-to-date Read more…
Royal Society: ammonia could power shipping, district heating and storage
Converting high carbon diesel engines in ships to run on clean ammonia would slash carbon emissions, according to a report from the world’s oldest scientific institution. The Royal Society says ‘green’ ammonia could also fuel district heating and provide energy storage. The policy briefing states that chilled ammonia made with green electricity can easily adopted Read more…
REGOs a go go: Scottish Power ups ante with green power pledge
Scottish Power has upped the ante in green power supply, announcing that all its domestic fixed tariffs will be backed by power sourced from its own UK wind farms. The Iberdrola-owned supplier, which last year divested its remaining fossil assets to Drax, added to calls for the regulator to tighten up the current certification scheme, Read more…
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos puts $10bn into climate change fund
Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, is donating $10 billion to causes combatting the climate emergency. The Bezos Earth Fund will award its first grants this summer, benefitting climate activists, researchers and NGOs. Announcing his fund yesterday via Instagram, the Amazon founder declared that the planet’s battle against climate change can still be won. “It’s Read more…
Renewable power generators go short on PPAs in hope prices will rise
Independent renewable generators are striking shorter term deals with offtakers in the hope that depressed power prices will rise, according to a specialist platform Renewable Exchange. The firm was founded by former Ovo trader Robert Ogden to provide a route to market for smaller generators to sell power to licenced suppliers. In its first full Read more…
3,500 NHS properties switch to renewable power via Inspired and British Gas
British Gas will supply 100 per cent renewable electricity from April to some 3,500 hospitals and clinics via a deal brokered by Inspired Energy. NHS Property Services (NHSPS) manages 3,500 NHS properties, around 11 per cent of the NHS estate in England. It also provides facilities management and maintenance to NHS trusts and tenants. Inspired Read more…
Centrica shares tank on heavy losses
Centrica lost almost a fifth of its value in early trading after posting an £849m pre-tax loss for 2019. In 2018 the group had recorded a profit of £987 million. One-off charges totalling £1.1bn hit numbers hard and the near-term outlook remains grim for upstream operations. Spirit Energy, the group’s North Sea oil and gas Read more…
BP pledges net zero by 2050
Oil and gas giant BP has committed to making its world-spanning operations net zero ‘on an absolute basis’ by 2050. New chief executive Bernard Looney also pledged to cut carbon intensity of its operations in half by 2050, with methane emissions halved across all its extraction and processing sites by 2023. Also included in a Read more…
Innogy brings 770MW of wind and solar assets to PPA market
Innogy is touting green power from 770MW of wind and solar assets to companies seeking green PPAs. The generator will use the Instatrust trading marketplace, run by Oslo-based DNV GL as a route to market. Green PPA deals more than doubled in 2019 to a record 19.5 GW, said Innogy, equivalent to the rated output Read more…
Aurora: Offshore wind spend “must double” to hit 40GW target
Meeting the government’s commitment to 40GW offshore wind target this decade would likely cost £48 billion, double the past decade’s outlay but delivering three times as much new capacity, according to Aurora Energy Research. The firm urged government to quickly push forward if it is serious about meeting the target as playing catch-up later in Read more…
Source London bolsters EV charging network, on track for 3,000 this year
Public electric vehicle charging operator Source London is to install a further 100 charge points this spring, and said it is on track to hit 3,000 charge points across the capital by the year end. Kingston Council in south west London is the latest of the network’s twenty partner boroughs. It struck a no-capex agreement Read more…
Decarbonise or die, investors warn heavy industry
Steel and cement industries “must transform themselves if they are to survive the low carbon transition”, warn investors managing assets worth £14tn. The world’s largest listed industrials have yet to take take firm action to ensure they meet Paris climate accords, UK environmental investors have found. The Transition Pathway Initiative found that across four high-emitting Read more…
Europe should ‘massively ramp up solar production’
Reviving Europe’s decimated manufacturing base for solar cells and panels could spur the PV installations needed to meet the continent’s climate goals according to the EU Commission’s research unit. The continent’s supply constraints for modules can be eliminated and jobs created, advises the Joint Research Centre, if Brussels takes upstream action to push EU states’ Read more…
SSE seeks green light to link Shetland to GB grid
SSE is requesting Ofgem’s approval to spend £2.4 billion on transmission upgrades, including a 600MW subsea connection to Shetland. It would be the islands’ first link to the national grid. Besides aiding export of wind power from the islands and boosting their security of supply, SSE says the link will also enable Shetland’s oil and Read more…
Audit office confirms Ofgem too generous with DNOs
The National Audit Office has confirmed persistent industry criticism that Ofgem has been too generous with regulated energy networks, allowing them to make excess profit for eight years. The spending watchdog said bill payers will have overpaid by up to £800m, while the eight-year ‘RIIO-1’ price control has secured too few improvements. “Customers have been Read more…
Ofgem probes National Grid and Scottish Power over HVDC connector failures
Ofgem has opened an investigation into National Grid and Scottish Power’s transmission arms over repeated outages and late delivery of the Western high-voltage (HVDC) subsea cable. The £1.3billion Western HVDC connector links Highland wind farms via Hunterston to North Wales. On 10 January 2020, the 239-mile subsea stretch suffered its third complete trip out in Read more…