ScottishPower expects Hagshaw Hill to produce five times as much energy with half the turbines by early 2025
One of Britain’s oldest onshore windfarms will soon be “repowered” so it can generate five times as much green electricity as it did in 1995 – with almost half as many turbines.
The owner of the Hagshaw Hill windfarm, ScottishPower, began dismantling 26 turbines on its site in rural South Lanarkshire on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Fatih Birol says China’s economic recovery combined with harsh winter could pile pressure on gas supplies
The head of the International Energy Agency has said energy prices may spike again this winter, forcing government to subsidise bills – just days after state support for UK households fell away.
Fatih Birol said a rapid improvement in the Chinese economy, coupled with a harsh winter, could put pressure on gas supplies and push up bills for consumers.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Cadent Gas, owned by Australia asset manager Macquarie, is considering closing its defined benefit scheme
The former owner of crisis-hit Thames Water has been accused by union leaders of staging a “cost-cutting money grab” at another critical UK infrastructure asset under its control, as it emerged that Cadent Gas is considering cuts to its pension scheme.
Macquarie, the Australian banking powerhouse that owned Thames for a decade, has led a consortium controlling Cadent since 2016. Cadent, Britain’s biggest gas network, serving 11 million people, was formerly part of National Grid.
Continue reading...As the industry gathers in London this week, there are signs of a new dawn after the damage done by Tory subsidy cuts
Britain’s solar industry delivered record levels of renewable electricity to the power grid earlier this year, but as daylight hours stretch longer around the summer solstice, it could be on track to reach another record.
Solar power generation in June is on track to come within a hair’s breadth of the record set during an unusually sunny May in 2020 at about 20 gigawatt hours, according to Alastair Buckley, the professor of organic electronics at the University of Sheffield.
Continue reading...Electricity generated on Shetland could be used to fuel the proposed Rosebank field, instead of homes
Electricity from a new onshore windfarm could be used to power the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, campaigners are warning, ahead of an imminent decision over whether to approve the project.
The huge Rosebank oilfield is three times bigger than the controversial Cambo field that was put on hold more than a year ago. It has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil and its final approval is expected to reach the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, in the next few weeks. It is expected to be approved after Rishi Sunak hinted last month that it would be “economically illiterate” not to invest in UK oil and gas because Britain will remain reliant on fossil fuels for “the next few decades”.
Continue reading...Speech in Scotland shows willingness to face energy dilemma head-on, but green groups say fossil fuel end date must come soon
Scotland was a brave choice as the venue for the launch of Keir Starmer’s new energy and climate policy. Back in March, Rishi Sunak was planning to hold his “energy day” in Aberdeen, the UK’s oil and gas capital, but after criticism he switched to the much safer Oxfordshire.
Starmer knows that Labour needs to win back lost seats in Scotland, so visiting the Scottish capital for an important speech was a canny move. More than that, though, taking the launch to Edinburgh showed a willingness to face head-on Labour’s energy dilemma: how to shift the UK economy to a low-carbon footing, as net zero demands, without destroying high-quality jobs in carbon-intensive industries.
Continue reading...Theresa May says parliament must punish MPs who break rules as Penny Mordaunt says Johnson ‘undermined democratic process’
At the Labour event Keir Starmer is now speaking. He starts with a jibe at the SNP, saying the tide is turning in Scotland.
Turning to energy policy, he says Labour wants to promote security.
Can we still achieve great things? Can we unite and move forward? Can we still change, can we grow, can we get things done, can we build things? New industries, new technologies, new jobs; will they come to our shores, or will the future pass us by?
You can put it even more starkly. Around the world people want to know, are we still a great nation? If the question is about the British people, the answer is emphatically: yes.
Continue reading...Report by cross-party MPs criticises previous ‘lack of urgency in addressing market failures’
MPs have urged the government to set out its plans to protect households from high energy bills this winter as they said about 1.7 million people, including some of the most vulnerable groups, had been left waiting too long to receive previous support.
The public accounts committee (PAC) said that although schemes were introduced quickly, the government “did not have the bandwidth” to make sure help reached all groups in a timely fashion.
Continue reading...As Russian oil and gas imports fell petrostates including UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia increased exports to UK
UK fossil fuel imports from authoritarian petrostates surged to £19.3bn in the year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it can be revealed.
Efforts to end the purchasing of oil and gas from Russia appear to have resulted in a surge in imports from other authoritarian regimes, including Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to data from the Office for National Statistics analysed by DeSmog.
Continue reading...Jeremy Hunt hopes suspending tax on oil profits if Brent crude falls below $71.40 a barrel will aid investment
Jeremy Hunt has offered the North Sea oil and gas industry a ‘get-out’ clause from the windfall tax on fossil fuel profits if wholesale energy market prices fall back to normal levels.
The chancellor hopes to boost investment in the North Sea by agreeing to suspend the windfall tax on oil profits if the market price for Brent crude falls below $71.40 a barrel, and gas prices fall below 54 pence a therm, for a period of six months. The global oil price is currently about $75 a barrel, and the UK’s gas price is about 64 p/th.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UN conference president Sultan Al Jaber is also head of oil firm, which was consulted on how to respond to a media inquiry
The United Arab Emirates’ state oil company has been able to read emails to and from the Cop28 climate summit office and was consulted on how to respond to a media inquiry, the Guardian can reveal.
The UAE is hosting the UN climate summit in November and the president of Cop28 is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc). The revelations have been called “explosive” and a “scandal” by lawmakers.
Continue reading...Thinktank says effective ban on planning permissions means country is way behind on much-needed renewable energy
It would take almost 4,700 years for England to build enough onshore windfarms to help meet the UK’s clean energy needs unless the government lifts an effective block on new turbines, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
Only 17 small-scale onshore windfarms have been approved in England since 2015 when the government changed planning laws to create a de facto ban on onshore windfarms, according to the thinktank.
Continue reading...Sum follows Ofgem inquiry into firm’s power generation arm earning ‘excessive payments’ from National Grid
The energy regulator has said the power generation arm of Scottish energy company SSE will pay a near-£10m penalty for breaching the terms of its licence.
Ofgem said a detailed investigation had found that SSE Generation had secured “excessive payments” from the National Grid, the electricity system operator (ESO), during periods of what is known as “transmission constraint”.
Continue reading...Amite BioEnergy, which was fined $2.5m in 2021, notified Mississippi facility had breached emission limits
A US plant that supplies wood pellets to the UK power generator Drax has violated air pollution limits in Mississippi, it has emerged.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) has written to Amite BioEnergy notifying the Drax-owned company that it had violated emissions rules.
Continue reading...But campaigners say it will not give much relief to struggling households as government support ends
Household energy bills could fall to an average of £2,053 a year this summer as the regulator prepares to lower its cap on energy prices next week, according to analysts.
However, campaigners have warned that the lower cap on energy bills, to be announced on Thursday, is unlikely to provide much relief to households that struggled to pay their bills over the winter because the government’s support schemes have come to an end.
Continue reading...E.ON Next, Octopus and Good Energy did not supply final bill on time to many households that had switched
Three energy suppliers have been made to pay compensation totalling £8m for failing to supply a final bill on time to more than 100,000 households that had switched provider.
The energy regulator for Great Britain, Ofgem, said E.ON Next was ordered to pay £5.5m to almost 95,000 customers because it did not provide them with a final bill within six weeks of moving to another supplier, nor did it pay compensation for the delay within 10 days of the missed deadline.
Continue reading...Watchdog’s chief writes to energy bosses as Grid sets out plan to cut waits by up to a decade
The energy watchdog for Great Britainwill label the decade-long wait to connect low-carbon projects to the electricity grid as “unacceptable”, amid tensions over a “blame game” for a mounting backlog of green power projects.
Jonathan Brearley, the chief executive of Ofgem, has written to energy bosses to warn that the current system, whereby energy projects queue for their connection, could be replaced by new methods to match power generation with demand.
Continue reading...Plausible for UK to become global clean energy superpower if investment is ramped up
The UK could unlock £70bn every year by generating enough clean electricity to become a major exporter of energy to mainland Europe, according to a former government economist.
A new report has found that by increasing Britain’s clean electricity generation 50% above its current projections for 2050 it could become a clean energy superpower capable of exporting £17bn of green electricity to Europe a year.
Continue reading...Macquarie has option for all of National Grid gas transmission and metering despite tainted history of owning utilities
Ministers have been urged to intervene if the Australian banking powerhouse Macquarie pushes the button on a mooted £3bn deal to take full control of a vital part of the UK’s gas grid.
A consortium made up of Macquarie Asset Management and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation completed the acquisition of 60% of the equity in National Grid’s gas transmission and meter business in January, in a deal which valued the business at £7.5bn.
Continue reading...World’s largest energy company’s first-quarter profits fall by 19% to $32bn after dip in oil prices
The Saudi government looks likely to reap greater revenues from the state-backed oil group Saudi Aramco despite the company posting a near-20% fall in quarterly profits.
The world’s largest oil and gas company said on Tuesday its profits had fallen by 19% in its first quarter compared with a year earlier, to nearly $32bn (£25bn), caused by a drop in oil prices.
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