UK Energy, Solar Panels UK & Earth News

Hot weather, rising domestic energy bills and concerns over climate change have conspired to make life easy for companies selling solar energy systems to householders. However, according to Cambridge UK based analysts, CarbonFree, some parts of the domestic renewable energy market are, themselves, starting to overheat with the benefits systems being oversold to householders.

Already a few renewable energy technology installers have made front page news in local newspapers for all the wrong reasons as customers discover that either promised benefits do not materialise or in some cases the systems do not work. According to CarbonFree the number of dissatisfied customers could increase this coming winter when the performance of solar energy systems fall. In addition, it believes that if the price of oil falls some householders, who were persuaded to buy at the peak of the market, may question the cost effectiveness of their new heating systems.

According to CarbonFree the problem of over selling is particularly acute with hot water solar installations, as the entry point into the market for small and relatively inexperienced installation companies is very low in terms of equipment and staffing costs. However, a report based on research CarbonFree carried out into microgeneration identified well-designed and professionally installed solar hot water heating as a relatively cost effective solution with a realistic payback period.

The report, “Householders as Energy Providers” catalogues a range of technologies that are deployed within microgeneration projects and describes government schemes vendors can use to increase take up of renewable energy equipment.

CarbonFree has identified energy storage as an important component in both microgeneration and large scale renewable energy installations. In its report “Watts In Store - Storing Renewable Energy”, CarbonFree predicts a growth in demand for equipment that can both even out short term peaks and troughs in solar and wind energy availability and also store energy during the summer for use in winter months. The report highlights “road energy” as an important technology in the energy storage market. In road energy systems, heat energy is taken from highways and airport runways during summer months and stored in aquifers to boost the performance of ground source heat pumps during the winter.

Original Source: PR Web

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UK natural gas prices will rise as crude oil gains because the country may get 50 percent of its supplies from liquefied natural gas imports by 2020, Norwegian researcher Eclipse Energy Group said today.

The average annual gas bill for British consumers could rise to 1,000 pounds ($2,000) from 600 pounds today if oil prices stay at today’s level, according to the report, commissioned by British energy supplier Centrica Plc.

“The LNG market is tightly connected to oil prices,” Robert Minsaas, managing director at Eclipse, said in a phone interview from London. British gas suppliers will have limited influence on pricing as they have to compete with other countries for gas deliveries by ship, he said.

The U.K. is becoming dependent on imported gas because of falling output from fields in the North Sea. While imports through pipelines from Norway and the Netherlands are insufficient to meet U.K. demand today, the amount of LNG delivered on ships is increasing, the report said.

The analysis “leaves no doubt about the energy crunch we are facing here in the U.K. and the real impact this will have on consumers, businesses and the economy,” Sam Laidlaw, Centrica’s chief executive officer, said in an e-mailed statement.

Gas for same-day delivery in the U.K. has more than doubled in the last year and traded at 61 pence a therm today, according to prices from broker ICAP Plc. That’s equal to $12.14 a million British thermal units. A therm is 100,000 Btus.

The report “highlights the urgent need to translate the recent political deal struck by European energy ministers into practical measures to liberalize energy markets on the continent to help reduce price volatility,” Laidlaw said.

Brent crude oil prices have risen 79 percent in London this year and reached a record $147.50 a barrel on July 11.

LNG is gas cooled to a liquid for transport by ship. The U.K. has imported three LNG cargoes this year.

Energy providers should introduce a direct link to market prices to help curb demand and make domestic gas customers more aware of prices, Minsaas said.

Gas production from the North and Irish seas is declining about 11 percent a year, a National Grid Plc report said in May.

Original Source: Bloomberg

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Gas prices are set to soar and then remain high for the foreseeable future, a report has revealed.

The independent report commissioned by Centrica, which owns British Gas, warns that prices could increase by 70%.

Jake Ulrich, managing director of Centrica Energy, admitted that gas price rises were likely to lead to a “potentially significant” rise in the number of people in fuel poverty.

He also predicted that people would have to change their habits to deal with higher prices.

He told Channel 4 News: “I do think we will see people change their behaviour. I think people will use less energy and I hate to go back to the Jimmy Carter days in the US but maybe it’s two jumpers instead of one.”

He added: “I think people will change the temperature they keep the house, they’ll be more cognizant of energy waste, they’ll buy better appliances.”

Gas prices will continue to rise for some time, he said.

“We’re part of a world economy and I don’t think we can rely on UK production or cheap gas, cheap energy of any sort any more.

“I think it’s a reality not only in the UK but in Western Europe and North America - energy is going to become relatively much more expensive in the future.”

Gas and electricity watchdog Energywatch called on the government to act now to reduce the pressure on wholesale gas prices and force the industry to deliver affordable energy for Britain’s poorest consumers.

Chief executive Allan Asher said: “The government is right to say that the link to oil is a cause of the problems but wrong to say there is nothing that can be done.

“The local impact is so catastrophic it should be leading the international drive to end the hugely damaging and entirely unjustifiable link between the prices of gas and oil.

“Rampaging oil prices are a serious and global contagion. That does not mean we should just take to our beds and hope that the fever will pass.

“Government can and should act in those areas where it can have an effect. Action to cut to the price link between gas and oil, action to improve the working of the domestic market, action to help those who can least afford to keep warm.”

Original Source: The Guardian

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A couple are hoping to weather the rising costs of fuel bills and make their home a more attractive purchase for the future by installing solar panels on its roof.

Although the panels will not provide electricity or domestic heating, they will provide a huge saving on the couple’s hot water bill.

Heat my Home, which is the company installing the panels later this month, says the panels can provide 70 per cent of a homeowner’s hot water needs and save up to 30 per cent on annual energy bills.

This could be money well saved as energy bills are rising, and some reports say they will increase by as much as 40 per cent this winter.

Mr Hayne, 72, a retired council highways inspector, said: “I was listening to the TV one night and it said houses in a couple of years are going to be built with solar panels, so I thought we might as well go ahead.

“We are hoping when we come to sell the house it will go easier and with the price rises on fuel, we may make a saving as well.”

The installation of the panels will also involve a new water tank being fitted, which will be large enough to cater for a family.

Mr Hayne said: “The solar runs all right even without sun, but if you get a cold spell then we might have to put on the immersion heater, so we will have that as a back-up.

“We decided to go ahead with it before the latest price rise, whether we make the back on the house by doing this.

“The main thing is our children will have no problem selling the house on after we are gone.”

The solar panels will only provide hot water, because the solar panel collection area needed to provide heating for a house would take up a far larger space than available on an average British home and would not be cost effective.

Having the panels can increase the value of a home, especially now Home Information Packs (HIPs) highlight energy efficiency.

Last week, it was announced household energy bills could rise by 20 per cent to pay for the cost of meeting the European Union’s 2020 emissions target.

A report called Costing the Earth stated this, coupled with the soaring cost of oil also contributing to rising energy bills, could push a lot of households in to fuel poverty. Wind power is currently the most popular form of renewable energy used in Britain.

Original Source: Get Woking

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The UK government’s renewables consultation called for a green revolution in energy. In doing so, it created a perfect tabloid rod for its own back. The proposed cost-to-consumer calculated by the Department of Business were based on the vanishingly unlikely prospect of an oil price as low as $70 a barrel in 2020. Expected additions to UK energy bills, at that oil price, would be 10-13% for electricity and 18-37% for gas, the government said.

Cue outrage. The tabloid press the next morning was full of angry headlines about inflating British energy bills. “Going green will mean five years of rising bills,” trumpeted the Daily Express. The adjacent headline read: “Fuel fears: Budget drove my dad of 92 to suicide.” The Daily Mail was more specific: “Price of turning green: Labour’s wind farm plan will cost every family £260 a year”. Neither they nor other similar articles in other tabloid papers mentioned the economic imperative of abating climate change.

Out-of-control climate change is going to land us all with bills that will make today’s energy bills look like pocket money. Nobody at all, that I saw, picked up the significance of the oil price, and peak oil, in the size of energy bills. Peak oil is going to send the oil price, high as it is today, through the roof. Gas and coal will go with it. Simply stated, fuel bills will be far higher if we stay with the status quo than if we go for a green renewables revolution.

The government did note that at $150 a barrel for oil 12 years from now, instead of $70, UK energy bills would be 35-40% lower than the figures that outraged the tabloids. But how much lower will they be at $200, $300, $400 and more for a barrel of oil?

On the same day the consultation was released, Gazprom boss Sergei Miller told the FT that OPEC has no control over world oil price and many countries are near peak oil. Prices are heading for “a radically new level” via $250 next year, he believes. As I constantly point out in these blogs, more and more people in and around the oil and gas industry are saying this kind of thing.

Perhaps oil traders are beginning to believe the forecasts of this kind. On the day the consultation was released, oil topped $140 for first time and shares plunged. Reflecting this and other woes, the Dow Jones hit its lowest level since 2006.

Proctor & Gamble gave us a clue, on the same day, as to how far-reaching the response to ever higher oil prices will be in the prescient quarters of the business world. P&G will shift to factories close to customers in order to cut its fuel bills, head of global supply Keith Harrison said. P&G have over 145 manufacturing plants in 80 countries supplying 3.5bn consumers. Their problems are about the cost of powering plants and well as the cost of having 30,000 trucks on the roads every day. By the end of 2009, half the electricity at a P&G nappy plant in Pennsylvania will come from onsite wind power, for example, and other renewables are being trialed, including of course solar. (Cue cynics: an opportunity to suggest once again that selling solar is surely all I care about in airing concerns about climate change and peak oil).

When are people going to get it? Within just a few years, peak oil is going to make them wish desperately that they had invested in renewables and efficiency today, or had a government willing to do so seriously on their behalf. There is no better way to avoid the inevitability of traditional energy-price inflation.

Original Source: The Guardian

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