Building materials giant Wienerberger will power all of its UK sites with renewable power from Danish supplier Dong Energy.
The energy firm, which makes around half of its revenue from wind power, announced a deal last year via which it said UK customers would not pay a premium for renewable power. This followed UK carbon tax changes (via the CCL) which reduced or removed the incentive for some businesses to use renewable power.
Ceramics industries are particularly energy intensive. If they can obtain renewable power at prices comparable to brown power they can offset other carbon taxes.
From an environmental perspective, Wienerberger said reducing the impact of its operations also provides supply chain benefits for customers, such as those trying to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment.
The firm’s finance director, Paul Stevenson, said procurement of renewable electricity “is just one of many steps we are taking at Wienerberger to reduce our carbon footprint. We’re pleased to be working with Dong Energy, a company which shares our values and is passionate about enabling a sustainable future.”
Dong’s UK sales director, Jeff Whittingham said businesses “should have access to renewable electricity supply without incurring additional cost” and that the supplier was “delighted that Wienerberger shares our ambition of creating this greener energy future. It’s exciting that one of the UK’s largest building material producers places such a strong emphasis on sustainability”.
Dong is one of a number of suppliers that is also pushing harder into flexibility markets and demand-side response following rule changes which increase penalties on suppliers for being out of balance in terms of generation and supply.
Given wind is intermittent, but reasonably predictable in the short term, Dong incentivises customers to help it balance its portfolio via a revenue share for demand-side response when it looks like being out of balance. Customers can name their own price for flexing demand, and if that price is more economic than taking the out-of-balance penalty, will receive an instruction from the energy supplier to adjust consumption accordingly.
More detail on how that works, plus insight from other energy suppliers and aggregators, can be downloaded for free via our 2016 demand-side response report. End users interested in monetising flexibility should also register for a free ticket for our 2017 DSR Event, held in London on 7 September.
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Dong Energy: Value of a flexible megawatt will increase ‘so be careful where you stick it’
Dong Energy enters demand-side response market with wind balancing service
Free report: 2016 DSR market report
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