The European Union’s recent proposals to end imports of Russian gas before 2030 in the wake of the Ukraine invasion are blighted by the bloc’s support for unnecessary and expensive technologies.
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Why the energy price cap is crucial to making sure renewable energy saves money for consumers
Don’t let yourself be fooled by energy companies complaining that the consumer energy price cap is against free-market principles. That is because the price cap is an essential tool in making sure that the energy suppliers pass on savings from cheap renewable energy to consumers in the form of lower energy bills.
Energy consumers face huge hidden cost overrun bill to protect corporate investors in Sizewell C
The Government is hiding the fact that, based on its own figures, Sizewell C could very well result in a huge increase in consumer bills, several times larger than it has so far been implied. This is because consumers will be expected to pay directly for what the Government’s own figures say is a high likelihood of extensive cost overruns. The Government will expose consumers to this risk in order to protect corporate investors from suffering the losses themselves – otherwise the Government will not get private investors. This is under the so-called Regulated Asset Base (RAB) method of funding Sizewell C.
Opposition Parliamentarians back campaign for solar pv on new buildings
Parliamentarians from the Liberal Democrats, Green Party and the Labour Party have backed the Green Buildings Campaign organised by 100percentrenewableuk. 100percentrenewableuk is campaigning for solar pv to be made mandatory on suitable new buildings and also that fossil fuel heating should be banned in them. Tim Farron, the ex-leader of the Liberal Democrats, and MP for Westmoreland and Lonsdale, is seeking to organise an Adjournment Debate on the subject in the House of Commons.
Why home batteries and electric car batteries could be a cheaper way to balance renewable energy compared to centralised storage solutions
Decentralised energy resources (DER) consisting in large part of solar pv units and storage batteries and electric vehicles (EVs) sited in domestic or commercial properties are increasing in number and capacity. Yet the key energy think tanks are busily ignoring this phenomenon in favour centralized-only solutions for balancing fluctuating renewables. This criticism certainly applies to a much publicised report published recently by Aurora which, apart from a fleeting reference to smart charging for electric vehicles (EVs) appears to completely ignore DER, seemingly in favour of large-scale battery assets. In fact there will be, arguably is already, a very large and growing DER in existence which would be much cheaper to mobilise than a lot of the centralised battery assets.
Costs of heat pumps and solar panels plunge for new homes
The Green Buildings campaign, promoted by 100percentrenewableuk, is claiming that making 3kW of solar panels and heat pumps compulsory for new homes will increase the cost of a new house by no more than 4% (probably less) – that’s little more than half the annual increase in house prices! Fitting heat pumps and solar pv is, anyway, much cheaper than retrofitting them onto existing buildings.
Sign our petition for mandatory solar pv and banning of fossil fuel boilers in new buildings. Here!
Spiking natural gas exports prove that renewables give us energy security, not gas
The recent revelation that exports of natural gas from the UK have actually increased during the gas price crisis provides strong evidence that producing more natural gas from British sources does nothing to help protect British energy security. By contrast, sourcing energy from British-based renewable energy under fixed price long term contracts will dramatically reduce the bills consumers have to pay compared to reliance on fossil fuels.
Fightback against the net zero skeptics and support the green buildings petition!
100percentrenewableuk has issued a call to achieve cheap, easily implementable steps of making sure solar panels and heat pumps are fitted to all new buildings. Fightback against the net zero sceptics who are pushing the Government to dodge their commitments to move the decarbonisation agenda forward!
Sign the petition calling for: A law making it a) mandatory for all suitable new roofs to be fitted with solar panels and b) banning fossil fuel powered boilers in new buildings, is vitally important to cut down on the vast quantities of easily achievable renewable energy deployment that are being wasted all of the time.
Labour bids to curb cost overruns from Sizewell C development
The Labour frontbench has put down an amendment to the Nuclear Financing Bill which would stop the automatic reimbursement of EDF for excess construction costs of the planned Sizewell C nuclear power plant. The amendment, put forward by Shadow Green New Deal and Energy Minister Alan Whitehead, has been defeated by the Conservative majority in the Commons, but will soon come up for a vote in the House of Lords.
Gas industry’s hydrogen talk likely to end hopes of fossil fuel ban in new buildings
The gas industry has announced that it is ready to supply a ’20 per cent’ blend of hydrogen with natural gas next winter in a move that is likely to end all hopes that the Government will ban fossil fuel boilers in new buildings from 2025.
So why aren’t cheap renewables doing more to reduce electricity prices? – Blairite ideology is to blame!
Despite the fact that an increasing proportion of electricity is being generated from cheap renewable energy, electricity bills are still surging upwards to follow the huge increase in natural gas prices. In fact some wind and solar schemes are in fact saving consumers quite a lot of money. But the reason that renewable generation is not saving a hell of lot more for consumers is that the large majority of currently operating wind power has been funded under the inefficient ‘Renewables Obligation’ (RO). This is a so-called market-based mechanism established under New Labour. To give New Labour its due, it was very good at setting the UK on course for the volume of renewable generation we have today, but its so-called market-based energy policy has not aged well.
French electricity consumers face brownouts and even power cuts after nuclear power plant shutdowns
French electricity consumers face curbs on their electricity supplies following shutdowns at four of EDF’s nuclear power plant. France is highly reliant on its nuclear power plants, obtaining around 70 per cent of its electricity from nuclear on an annual basis. This, along with other various examples of nuclear unreliability, must seriously question the British Government’s determination to plough on with its programme of new nuclear power plant.
Heat Pump installer calls for ‘exceptionally expensive’ and unnecessary heat pump bureaucracy to be dropped
A major barrier facing the development of a viable heat pumps industry in the UK is the very bureaucracy that the Government has been using to (allegedly) promote it. Despite being safer and certainly a lot more ecologically friendly, heat pump installations are loaded with at least three times the regulatory controls as the gas boiler industry. I asked heat pump installer Brendan Uys from the company Heacol about what steps could be taken to increase the number of MCS accredited heat pump installation personnel. He responded by saying:
Government (maybe) boosts solar pv but sidelines heat pumps in new homes and building guidelines
The Government has finally published what it calls its ‘Future Homes and Buildings Standard’ that will regulate new homes from June 2022. Amongst a lot of fog generated about lofty future ambitions the reality is that the new building standards are not be strong enough to do more than get 2-3 kW of solar panels installed on an average new home. That’s all you need to achieve the target reduction in emissions that the Government has set. The rest is pushed into a might-be land of 2025 (safely after the next General Election?). That is easily a long enough delay for the gas industry and laggards in the building industry to postpone radical emissions reductions again.
The ways that green energy technology is held back by negative prejudice that you don’t even notice
One thing that annoys me greatly when people talk about green energy technologies is the way that they are sidelined by holding them up to absurd standards to which ‘conventional’ patterns of consumer spending are simply not judged. This is something that afflict heat pumps, electric cars and solar panels. How and why does this happen?