Next Energy Solar Fund is planning to spend £20m on commercial building rooftop PV in 2019. The fund has partnered with Zestec Asset Management to develop and build out new projects and aims to acquire existing rooftop schemes as well as fund new developments. The plan is to sell electricity generated from the schemes via Read more…

French utility Engie will take 23.3 per cent of all the power generated by the 950MW Moray East offshore windfarm when its enters commercial operations in 2022. The firm, which has a 23.3 per cent stake in the project  15 miles off the east coast of Scotland, has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA). Read more…

Energy efficiency remains the bedrock of the UK’s low carbon industry, according to latest government data. Meanwhile turnover in the renewable heat sector saw the largest absolute growth across the low carbon economy. The figures are for 2017 and are obtained via a survey sent by the Office of National Statistics (ONS) to 24,000 businesses Read more…

Large corporations bought more than double the amount of renewable power from generators via power purchase agreements (PPAs) in 2018 than in 2017, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Its analysis suggests 13.4GW was bought by 121 corporates via PPAs in 2018 versus 6.1GW in 2017. That figure excludes some types Read more…

Grid technology company Faraday Grid has received a £25m investment from billionaire businessman Adam Neumann, founder of shared workspaces firm WeWork. The firm claims its technology enables power grids to accommodate vast levels of renewable generation, up to 80 per cent penetration. It intends to create intelligent, self balancing networks using ‘Faraday Exchangers’. These power flow control Read more…

Major european energy companies have joined forces to create a sustainable finance forum to drive clean investment. Founder members of the Corporate Forum on Sustainable Finance include EDF Energy, EDP, Enel, Engie, Iberdrola, Orsted, and SSE. The firms will work to try and attract greater levels of investment into clean energy and technology through new financial instruments Read more…

Mark Jones is the new chief exec at Ventient Energy. The firm was formed in 2017 by the merger of the Zephyr and Infinis Wind portfolios. It operates some 34 onshore wind farms in the UK, totalling almost 690MW. Jones, former boss of wind turbine manufacturer EWT, is tasked with growing Ventient’s portfolio of assets Read more…

Government is proposing that suppliers be made to pay something for power exported onto the system by smaller generators. The move follows widespread condemnation of the decision to remove payments for exported generation at the same time as closing the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) subsidy scheme. Recognising those concerns, the department for business, energy and industrial Read more…

2019 could prove an interesting year for electric vehicles and renewables as a new breed of investor emerges, according to directors and managers at Octopus Investments. Dan Saunders, investment director at Octopus: “Octopus expects 2019 to be significant for the deployment of electric vehicles in the UK due to helpful policy-making. The introduction of the Clean Read more…

If solar PV is allowed to bid into a future Capacity Market it will be derated to less than two per cent of headline output, according to a consultation published by the EMR Delivery Body. That means it would receive less than two per cent of the per kilowatt clearing price. Under the proposals, onshore Read more…

Energy efficiency will be key to decarbonising London, regardless of the technology choices it makes over the coming decades, according to Sadiq Khan. Meanwhile, government must commit to subsidising renewable heat and supporting heat networks beyond 2021, when the current regime will close. If it cannot make decisions fast enough, it should hand over the Read more…

Swindon Borough Council-owned Public Power Solutions has switched on Barnfield Solar Farm. The 2.5MW facility will power the solid recoverable fuel (SRF) plant and depot at the adjacent Swindon household waste recycling centre via a private wire, cutting power bills by around £185,000 a year. The SRF plant process 70,000 tonnes of rubbish a year, Read more…

BT and Eon have pledged to electrify their fleets by 2030. The two are among a number of companies that have signed up to the EV100 initiative, joining the likes of EDF, Heathrow Airport, Ikea, Unilever and Vattenfall. The Climate Group, which oversees the RE100 where business pledge to buy renewable power, is behind the Read more…

Limejump has agreed terms on a Power Purchase Agreement with Next Energy Solar Fund, potentially bringing 120MW of solar PV into its virtual power plant (VPP). The aggregator said it is also working with Next Energy on its battery storage projects, which were connected at two of its solar farms in May. The fund is Read more…

Swedish utility Vattenfall has signed a deal to install its first electric car chargers in the UK. It will install and operate 20 chargers to be owned by South Norfolk Council and provide them with 100% renewable power via its British wind farms. Vattenfall aims to build a UK charging network by working with other Read more…

Former Tesco chief executive, Sir Terry Leahy, has offered energy managers pitching projects to their board some advice: Keep it simple. Speaking at the launch of a new range of smart EV chargers from Myenergi, in which he is an investor, Leahy noted that the most effective ways of cutting carbon are often the most Read more…

Pubco Marston’s and supermarket giant Tesco have announced big plans for electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Tesco will install 2,400 EV charging bays across 600 stores over the next three years in a deal with charging firm Pod Point. Some will be free-to-use 7kW units, others 50kW rapid chargers, which shoppers will pay to use. Pod Read more…

Ørsted, the energy company part-owned by the Danish state plans to build 15GW of offshore wind capacity by 2025. CEO Henrik Poulsen outlined the new targets, about 25% higher than those set last year (11-12GW), ahead of a capital markets day. The company said it plans to invest 200bn Danish Krone (£23.76bn) in renewables out Read more…

Councils in West Yorkshire have struck a deal with Engie for dozens of electric vehicle (EV) rapid charging stations which will be free to use until late 2021. The energy supplier will own and operate the network and supply 100% renewable power for up to 88 chargers. The charging stations should provide a full charge Read more…